


The Face of the Wilderness

by Chokopoppo



Series: Midian Hill [2]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Prime
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Car Accidents, M/M, Medical Procedures, Meet-Cute, Mutual Pining, Mystery, Police Procedural, Sharing a Bed, idiots to lovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-30
Updated: 2020-07-03
Packaged: 2020-07-27 11:41:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 46,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20045413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chokopoppo/pseuds/Chokopoppo
Summary: Welcome to the town of Midian Hill. There's a population of 200 people, plus five stop signs, three police officers, and two police cars. Things don't happen here. People don't disappear here.And there's nothing in the woods.





	1. Exodus 2:22

**Author's Note:**

> Hey y'all, thanks for joining me on another weird adventure! Someone's probably into this.
> 
> As a warning: due to the mystery elements in this fic, there are some plot points / triggers that I won't be putting in the main tags for the fic to avoid spoiling plot twists or major story elements. I _will_ include major triggers in the beginning notes of chapters that contain them, but they will not be listed in the tags above. Please proceed with caution, and read the notes carefully.

_...For I have been a stranger in a strange land._  


Let’s go back half an hour before Optimus hits the stranger with his car.

The diner has that classic lighting to it—the not-quite fluorescents shining off black-and-white checkerboard tiles and the plasticky red pleather of the booths. Most of the staff has clocked out over the past half hour, and only the owner is left, wiping down the bar. Optimus has asked her before, a hundred times, if she’s _sure _she doesn’t mind these long nights, and she only ever winks at him and tells him to take all the time he needs. He doesn’t pretend to know what she’s implying, but if she’s going to keep plying him with free coffee long after midnight, he can’t complain.

Across the table from him, still in scrubs and looking haggard and ravenous after another forty-five hour shift, Ratchet is shotgunning burnt toast with the speed and energy of a man rescued from starvation in the middle of the Sahara. He’s emptied _his _mug at least four times, and thanks the owner effusively every time she comes by with the decaf again. Secretly, Optimus suspects that Ratchet is the reason the diner stays open two hours past its marked closing time once a week—he and the owner are old friends, and she’s always giving him these little smiles when his back is turned. Ratchet told him, once, that they went to high school together. She probably fancies him.

“Long night?” Optimus asks, leaning back comfortably in his booth. The pleather is palpably sticky against his uniform, but he doesn’t mind. He’s off-shift. There’s nowhere he’d rather be, and no one he’d rather be with.

Ratchet rolls his eyes. “You have no idea,” he mutters through a mouthful of food, then swallows down another gulp of coffee to clear his mouth. “This new batch of residents is going to kill me. Swear to God. There’s this new student who’s all bright-eyed, keeps volunteering to take cases he’s not ready for. No sense of personal space. Keeps leaning over my shoulder to look at charts.”

“I thought First Aid was on full-time now.”

“Oh, First Aid’s alright,” Ratchet says, waving a hand. “I got used to _him._ He can mostly handle what he volunteers for, doesn’t come running for advice every time something goes wrong.” He spears a roasted tomato with his fork. “That’s the thing I’m looking for. Students who can _work _a problem, instead of asking me to fix it for them.”

Optimus smiles into his own mug of coffee. It’s practically empty, but he doesn’t like asking for refills. The diner has a ‘free coffee for cops’ policy that he doesn’t personally agree with. Makes him feel like he’s taking advantage. “If you’re teaching them, isn’t it good that they ask questions?” He says. “I thought that was how they learned. Seems like it’d be better for them to ask you questions _now, _instead of guessing with diagnoses and getting it wrong.”

“You’re probably right,” Ratchet says, “but I’m just not built for teaching that way. If I had a bigger hospital, I wouldn’t _have _to deal with this, you know.”

“It’s bigger than it _was,_” Optimus reminds him. “The town appreciates it, you know. What you’ve done. It’s good for the infrastructure.”

“It’s always nice to be appreciated by the _town,” _Ratchet agrees, focused intensely on a small pile of baked beans that he’s trying to finagle onto his fork with a butter knife, “but don’t get it confused, I just wanted more work. Free time isn’t good for my health.”

“Are you thinking about expanding?” Optimus asks, watching in fascination as his friend scrapes the wastes of his Full English into a pile at the center of his plate in a mash of crumbs and drippings. “I’ve heard Kepler is looking for somewhere to offload their patients. Apparently, they’re stretched pretty thin out there. Lots of injuries in the coal mines. Chromedome told me,” he amends quickly, as Ratchet fixes him with a suspicious look, bushy brows and shocking blue eyes. “He transferred from there. Apparently, they had a lot of busts up in the mountains. Illegal operations.”

Ratchet grunts dismissively and leans back in his seat, cleaning his hands with his napkin. He’s a little older than Optimus is, short and broad-shouldered and dense, squared off at the top with a short crop of grey hair. “Maybe,” he says doubtfully, “right now, we’re too short-staffed to take on overflow work for them. If we could poach some of their doctors, maybe. I was thinking more along the lines of getting a regional OBGYN office set up. Women around here have to drive an hour out to Huntington just to get routine medical treatment.”

“Like a whole building?” He frowns. “There’s some free land, south of Sheffield Park. I hear there was almost a Walmart there, once, before all the mom and pops ran it out of business. It might be up for purchase for pretty cheap. But how do you even get funding for that?”

Ratchet rubs his temple. “Petition the local government,” he mutters, “write papers, try to get funding from the local colleges. God, it’s going to be nothing but paperwork, I don’t even want to _think _about it. It’s my night _off._”

“Didn’t you just get off work?”

“It’s my day off, starting now,” he amends, “and I don’t want to think about paperwork until Saturday. What about you? Any interesting arrests?”

“Oh, the _most,” _Optimus says, smiling. “Got a cat out of a tree. Stopped Prowl from arresting someone for parking their car in front of his mailbox. It’s been a non-stop thrill ride from start to finish.”

“You ever miss New York?”

Optimus thinks of the unused handcuffs on his belt and the firearm he hasn’t taken out of his holster in the eighteen months since his move. “Not for a second,” he says, and means it. “Driving on the mountains doesn’t scare me anymore. I sleep pretty good now, too.”

Ratchet smiles endearingly. “Got used to the sound of the trains?” He guesses.

“It was the howling I couldn’t stand,” Optimus admits. “Wind does not howl in New York City. _Animals _do not howl in New York City. I guess prostitutes do sometimes, but I hear that costs more these days—“ he breaks off as Ratchet starts laughing, and feels an untoward thrill of pleasure. His best friend is a serious man, to whom humor does not come often—his laugh is startling and thick, and it excites Optimus’ happiness immensely. _I made him laugh,_ he thinks, and hides his teeth in his coffee.

“Jesus,” Ratchet says, coughing a little. “Not while I’m drinking, Optimus.”

“Sorry,” he replies, not feeling sorry at all. His insides are warm.

“Come on, we should get out of here,” Ratchet says. “Let Elita actually close up shop. You’re still letting me bum a ride off you, yeah?”

“I drove you _here,_ didn’t I?” Optimus puts his mug down and starts getting up. “You worried I can’t make it back down the hill?”

This is how their Thursday evenings go: Optimus gets out of work at 9:45 PM on the dot, goes back to his apartment, and takes a two-hour nap. At midnight, after washing up and putting on a very faint layer of his best cologne (the orange peel one, which the bottle proclaims George Washington used to wear in 1778), he sends an extremely cavalier text to Ratchet about how he’s just out of work, and would he like to go grab dinner/breakfast? He’s hungry, and the hospital’s on his way to the diner anyway, it’s no trouble. And then he waits, anxiously straightening his uniform in the patrol car, until he gets a text back some five minutes later, with an even-more cavalier _‘coffee on you. I’m out in 5’. _Optimus picks Ratchet up from the hospital, and they take the long drive out to the only diner open until 1:30 AM, a ways up the mountain and rarely populated by anyone but the two of them. They talk, catch up on the week, apologize to the owner, overstay their welcome, and generally, experience what little genuine connection they can get.

Well. Maybe that last part is just Optimus, who gets most of his social activity from the minuscule police department and the fitness center, twenty five miles out, on the weekends. He doesn’t have much in common with the gym rats who make polite conversation with him on the weight floor, and the police department… the department is… 

Here’s the important thing about the city of Midian Hill, West Virginia. It’s got five stop signs, three police officers, and two police cars. When Optimus took the job as police chief, his old chief had suggested the sinecure basically as a gentle retirement. It also, technically, paid better than his position as a regular officer in a larger city, and rent was lower.

And there aren’t so many memories associated with West Virginia.

So, he’d moved, and inherited a collection of antsy, anxious, or outright hostile subordinates. Prowl, his head deputy, seems to actively detest him. Resents him for taking the job. Chromedome has told Optimus, confidentially, that Prowl was expecting to be offered the position, and doesn’t like taking second place.

Chromedome is young, bright-eyed, and too eager for his own good. He’s an officer, mostly because somebody has to be, and is more or less the only member of the team who knows how to make the internet go on the computers. He transferred from the village about five miles away, and refers to Midian Hill as the “big city”. Prowl’s pretty soft on him. They’ve got a good rapport. Whenever he can, Optimus leaves them alone.

His work’s easier when they aren’t hanging around his ears. His personal time, ditto. That’s why Thursday nights are important.

Ten minutes before Optimus hits the stranger with his car, Ratchet is cashing out for their meal while Optimus fishes around in his wallet for a tip. They usually give the owner about 200%, which is maybe another reason she keeps the diner open for them. She smiles at both of them, all teeth, and makes gentle conversation with Ratchet that Optimus politely tunes out. She’s hanging up her pinafore when they stride out the front door at 2:46.

“Do patrol cars also have regular radios, or just the police one?” Ratchet is asking, as Optimus unlocks the door from the inside. The patrol car is not a particularly impressive vehicle. It’s old, for one thing. The doors have to be unlocked manually. The sirens have to be _turned on _manually. His _truck _is impressive. It’s got a V8 engine and a paint job he did himself and a key fob that lets him turn the car on from inside his house in the winter. But he doesn’t really have an excuse to pick Ratchet up in his truck. Obviously, he wouldn’t be at work with it.

“They’re not _supposed _to,” Optimus says, as Ratchet throws his medical kit in the back seat like it’s a career criminal, “but this one does. I think it’s just a converted sedan.”

The diner is the only stop open late at night, visible halfway up the mountain, along with a derelict bar and a gas station with one lit pump. Elita told him, once, that when she was a kid, the little bend in the road was halfway between town and the coal mine, but that the mine had dried up by the time she was old enough to inherit the family business, and it had been a downhill (ha, ha) battle keeping it operating ever since. Midian Hill, never a large town to begin with, had lost family after family to better jobs in better places, shriveling down until half the buildings were boarded up and the other half were rarely illuminated at night. That was, until Ratchet had come back from his expensive medical school in the midwest and started making Big Changes to the hospital, almost twenty years ago.

To Optimus, the town still looks pretty small. Elita says he just doesn’t have the right perspective. 

In retrospect, he couldn’t have avoided meeting Ratchet. You meet everyone eventually, in a town this small. It’s not like New York, where finding his best friend had been a weird platonic meet-cute with a gang of construction workers he’d thought he was going to have to arrest. And Ratchet is a presence. It’s not that he’s magnetic—you wouldn’t look twice at him if you didn’t know who he was—it’s just that the town lives and breathes on his name. Optimus had heard of him, and expected to meet him, by the end of his first week in town.

What he _hadn’t _expected was… well, _Ratchet. _He hadn’t expected to get on with one of those _intellectual types,_ which is what the boys back home would’ve called him. He’s… 

“I’m putting NPR on if you don’t pick a channel,” Ratchet says, fiddling with the dial. “Stop dreaming and drive, you can sleep when you get home.”

“Oh,” Optimus says, and shakes his head, laughing, a little embarrassed. “Right. I’m not sure there’s much on except classical music, this time of night. Someone up at the station likes it.”

Ratchet snorts. “Fuck these little towns,” he mutters. “Alright, classical it is. Let’s get out of here.”

Optimus turns on his brights after a moment of deliberation, unlocks the parking brake, and starts making his way slowly down the mountain. The slopes of these roads still make him nervous, no matter what he says over coffee, and despite the speed limit markers, he mostly just glides down at an easy 35, one foot scraping the brake pedal the whole way down. Uphill is another story.

But no one else is coming the other way—there’s nothing behind them worth going to, not at this time of night—and if Ratchet ever notices that he drives slow, he doesn’t comment on it.

“I know it’s been a while,” Optimus says, “but—you asked me if I missed New York. You used to live in Chicago, didn’t you?” He squints through the windshield at a shadow moving in the dark. Just a wild animal moving through the brush. “Do you ever regret coming back here?”

“Before you came along? Constantly,” Ratchet says easily, and Optimus almost loses control of the car in surprise. “No one to talk to except Elita, no one who _got _it. Don’t give me that look. I mean, you know what it’s like to have responsibility. To deal with _expectations.” _He raises his eyebrows. “But it’s not like I miss Chicago. I mean, I miss living in a city, sometimes. When I travel out there for conferences, I get homesick for it, if that makes sense?”

“I know exactly what you mean,” Optimus assures him. “I was back in the city for Christmas. Best sleep I’ve had in months.”

One minute.

“That’s it, that’s _exactly _it,” Ratchet says, nodding. “But I didn’t have anyone worth going to visit in Chicago, when it broke bad. It’s frustrating out here, sometimes. I don’t feel qualified for the job I _have,_ but no one else is going to do it.”

Optimus snorts. “I know how _that _goes. But you’ve done amazing things, with the hospital.” He glances sideways at him. “Everyone says so. Even if you left tomorrow, people would still be grateful.”

“I _can’t _leave tomorrow,” he replies, “hypothetically speaking. I didn’t start expanding the hospital because I—because I wanted to make a difference, or because I wanted praise. I just—somebody _had _to. This town would have died if—“

The man sprints across the road before Optimus sees him—he slams down on the brakes—the car swerves left—Ratchet yells an expletive—

And there, that horrible jerk of the car, that awful sickening _whump _of hard contact.

“Jesus!” Ratchet is yelling, “fucking _was _that—“

“Was that a deer?” Optimus feels coming out of his mouth, “can you get a visual?”

“I think it was a, person,” Ratchet says, “my bag—“

They get out of the car at the same time, Ratchet reaching for the backseat and Optimus reaching for his radio. Ratchet doesn’t pay him any mind—he is five steps ahead, he is sorting through his medikit’s pockets for his penlight and slinging the rest over his back. The car’s brights are illuminating the body where the crash threw it. With some relief, he sees movement.

“Hey!” He yells to the prone figure. “Don’t move! I’m coming to you.” 

He slows as he approaches, spare gravel kicked up by the car’s tires crunching against the asphalt under his feet. There are two things he notices about the man lying on the ground; first, that he’s dressed in a grey coverall, like a janitor or a mechanic, black stains of oil or graphite streaked all over the durable cloth; second, that he isn’t wearing any shoes.

“Hey,” he says again, more quietly, as he gets to his knees, “can you move? You awake? Stay with me, tell me what’s happening.”

The man’s face flutters. It’s twisted in pain, wrinkles worn deep and eyes shut tight, his teeth bared in a grimace. “Hurts,” he spits out, voice thick with regional accent, “leg.”

“Alright,” Ratchet says, taking him by the side of the head, catching his ear between his index finger and his thumb. “Don’t move your head. I’m going to steady you.”

The man grunts, opens his eyes by a centimeter. With his hands physically on him, Ratchet is forced to confront the third glaringly obvious thing about him; he’s huge. Ratchet is no large man, by anyone’s standards—embarrassingly, he’s a full head-and-shoulders shorter than the new pediatrician he hired last spring—but he _knows _what _big_ looks like when he sees it. A hand like a sledgehammer reaches up and grabs him by the collar. “You,” he mutters. “Who?”

“I’m a doctor, at the hospital,” he replies, “it’s okay, we’re gonna get you back there and take a look at you. Your neck’s alright. You gave us a hell of a scare.”

“What happened?”

Ratchet looks up at the road as Optimus gets the sirens flicked on suddenly, blaring and bright. The man under him wriggles and yelps, like the light and sound is hurting him. It probably is. There’s no way he’s not concussed.

Silently, Ratchet gives a little thanks to whatever terror it is that makes Optimus drive so slowly on the highway. If they were going more than fifteen when they collided, he’ll eat his own shirt.

“You came sprinting out of the woods onto the highway, is what happened,” he says, unable to resist scolding him a little bit. “What the hell were you doing up there? There’s all kinds of wildlife up in the mountains. You could’ve gotten attacked by a bear, or—or a coyote or something.”

The man blinks up at him. He has dark, distinct eyes, and a shock of grey and black hair, long and pulled back. His left cheekbone is bruised, the yellow-black of a four-day heal. Under Ratchet’s hand, on his jaw, he can feel the scratch of beginning stubble. “Running,” he says hoarsely, and goes limp against the asphalt.

_In the forest?_ Ratchet wants to ask. _In the middle of the night? _But he doesn’t bother. Mostly because any man splayed in the middle of the road after being thrown twelve feet by a car just doesn’t need to be interrogated that exact second, but also because he can hear Optimus’ boots crunching towards him.

“I called it in,” Optimus says, “the police department knows about it. Should we call for an ambulance? I figure, if he needs a—a stretcher, or something, we should wait, but I’ve got sirens and—and I’ve got you. We could drive him ourselves. It’d be faster.”

Ratchet stares down the dark, winding path, beyond what the blinding lights of Optimus’ vehicle can reach. “Maybe you’d better let me drive,” he says, “I can take the turns a little faster than you can.”

“I guess I’m—_technically _off the clock, I guess that’s okay,” Optimus says, “I mean, I shouldn’t, really, but this is a _medical _emergency. I’ll defer to your expertise.” Then, “Christ, he’s _big,_ isn’t he? What was he doing running through the woods at this time of night?”

“Beats the hell out of me,” Ratchet says. “Think you could help me get him into the back?”

Between the two of them, with Optimus levering him up under the armpits and Ratchet hanging on to his knees and giving general encouragement, they manage to get the giant lying mostly flat in the caddy. Up close, Ratchet can see that one of his legs is twisted in the telltale bend of a broken tibia, and that his feet are practically callused all over. His sprint through the woods hasn’t sprung a single leak—there’s no blood on him anywhere.

“No blood on his feet,” he says, as Optimus curls down to crawl into the passenger seat, “did you notice that?”

“There’s a _lot _to notice about him,” Optimus says, staring at the steering wheel nervously, “I don’t think his feet were really on my top, um, priority list. You know, maybe I _should _drive—you know, it’s my car…” he trails off, looking anxious.

Ratchet smiles at him out of the corner of his mouth, and switches the car into drive. “You scared?”

“Uh, haha,” Optimus says, “no?”

Ratchet is not scared of the mountains. Ratchet spent his delinquent summers rocketing down them on bikes and skateboards and his stepfather’s stolen car long before he ever caught headwind of a semi, long before he _got out_ all those long years ago. He lives and breathes the adrenaline of _too fast,_ which is mostly why he’s not allowed to drive.

Sirens blaring, he hits the gas pedal, and listens to Optimus yell the whole way down.

“Here’s what I’m going to do,” Ratchet says, ignoring Optimus’ firm grasp on the handle above the door and his firm stance on the mom-brake, “I’m pretty sure it’s a broken leg, that’s going to cause the most damage. But if he got hit, he’s probably got some broken ribs. Worst case scenario, I’m going to have to check his lungs, make sure they didn’t puncture. Whiplash, for sure, that’s a concussion.” He screeches around a corner.

“I shouldn’t have let you drive,” Optimus says, miserably.

“Calm down, I know there’s a stop sign at the bottom,” Ratchet says. “Internal bleeding’s going to be the big one. I hope his concussion isn’t _too _bad. I’ve got some questions for him. What are you going to do?”

“Go back to the station,” Optimus says, “make a report _please _slow down, put out a—an unidentified persons’ report so we can figure out where this guy’s from. You’re handing him off to First Aid?”

“First Aid’s not in for another three hours,” Ratchet says, “I’ll have to take care of him myself, I don’t want to leave him with residents. If he’s bleeding into his brain, a slow diagnose could kill him.”

“But—it’s your day off,” Optimus says, “you were _just _saying so.”

Ratchet groans. “Don’t remind me,” he says. “I’ll just—figure this patient out and redistribute my time off. Lord knows I’ve got sick days to spare.”

The hospital is right in the new center of town—if you stripped away the dead chaff of abandoned buildings, the town would form almost a perfect circle around it, expanding outward in rings like vegetation around a pond. It’s the only building, save the police station, that’s open 24/7 in the town, lit up with LED stripes that dim as the town falls asleep but never go out. Seeing the red cross illuminated high above his head every time he finishes a shift, even at one in the morning, even when the whole town is asleep and the hospital is skating by on skeleton staff, fills Ratchet with an old, tired pride. When he’d first come back home to Midian Hill when everything in Chicago fell apart, the hospital was open from 8:15 AM to 5:15 PM, when the staff from the nearby medical college had volunteered to work for teaching credits. If you had a problem after that, you had to call the police station, who had to go through their phone book to figure out which hospital in which neighboring town was closest to the call, and if they had an ambulance, and how long it would be before they could drive the twenty-plus miles out. There was no guarantee anyone would show up at all. 

Now, they have four ambulances. The hospital is three small buildings strong, and it runs all night long. It’s very rare that they _need _to use those ambulances, or the nighttime staff. But the college sends students, now, not teachers. In the past year, Ratchet personally hired on two highly promising young doctors, who actually seem _excited _to be here and to help with expansion.

It’s not a _big _hospital, by any means. But there’s work. There’s a staff. There’s money coming in, even if it’s money he’s had to drag out of benefactors by the teeth and sheer power of annoyance. Ratchet works forty-five hour shifts and takes twenty-four hour breaks. He sleeps in his own home once a week and in the residency hall in the long breaks in his even longer shifts. He’s always lived his life that way; flying by the grit of his teeth, pushing and pushing and pushing for the chance to bite off more than he can chew and chewing it. He doesn’t know how to pull back the throttle, and he’s always liked it that way. No time to fret over things falling apart if all he can see ahead of him is how to put them back together. Up until the last few months, he’d never _wanted _time off, never bothered with breaks. Never had anything to look forward to in the silence of his own house.

He pulls to a stop, sirens still blaring, and gets out of the patrol car, waving over one of the residency students who’s standing outside having a smoke break. As she hastily throws her cigarette in the ashtray and runs towards the front to grab a gurney, Ratchet turns to look at Optimus, who’s looking a little green in the face and wobbly around the knees. There’s a sheen of anxiety sweat on his dark forehead and gathering in the hollows under his cheekbones. He catches Ratchet staring and gives a wobbly smile, and an even wobblier thumbs-up.

“You okay, Prime?” He asks, smiling despite himself.

“Super-duper, doc,” Optimus replies, steadying himself on the hood of the car. “You need me to help you get him inside?”

“I’m alright, Lottie’s gonna help,” he says. “You just go home and get some rest.”

Optimus shakes his head, looking noble and stoic even as he has to shut his eyes tightly to avoid movement sickness. “I _wish_ I could just go home,” he says, miserably. “I’ve got to go back to the station. I can’t delay that report.”

Officer Tumbler (Chromedome, to his friends and superiors, which is everyone) has had, for the first time since moving into Midian Hill and, in fact, the first time since his nights were taken up by night shifts even at his first tentative position in Kepler, an eventful night. He’s hoping it won’t go to his head.

With only three officers sharing the police station, their time stretched thinly and their shifts stretched long, Chromedome has (by virtue of least experience, young youthfulness, and general short-straw-drawing abilities) cemented himself as the evening vanguard of their town. If that’s even what “vanguard” means. It’s like, a kind of guard, right? You’d assume, because of the word. Anyway, he’s the evening guard—comes in at 9:30 PM, chats with the chief as they swap shifts over, and then he’s alone until 5:15 AM, when Prowl shows up with coffee to get him to 9:30 AM. He likes the super-long shifts—he’s alone until Prowl clocks in, which means he can catch up on reading, call his mom, text this guy he met on spring break in New Orleans who is, like, _so _funny and who lives in California so it’s like, normal nighttime hours for him, practice his b-ball toss with paper and the litter bin, and, very occasionally, do his job. His job, mostly, is making sure the chief’s computer is still plugged into the router, and restocking Prowl’s little desk bowl with lemon drops to cover up how many he steals for himself. And sitting by the radio, waiting for calls.

At 5:15 AM precisely, Chromedome is typing up a report, one hour after putting down the phone, and glances up as his superior officer hip-bumps the door open, a travel cup in each hand.

“Prowl,” Chromedome says, breathlessly springing up from his seat, “you won’t _believe _the night I had!”

Prowl looks at him. “Tuck in your shirt,” he says, and hands Chromedome his coffee.

“There was an accident, up on the mountain,” Chromedome says, sipping the coffee right from the cup and immediately burning the roof of his mouth, _“ouch, fuck—_with the chief! Some rando came sprinting out of the woods and jumped in front of him, and then these _guys _called me looking for a John Doe, like, _the same night! _So I figure, it’s the same guy, right?”

“Which guys?” Prowl squints at him. “They’re looking for a John Doe?”

“Right!” Chromedome gesticulates excitedly. “So—and that’s what Optimus—sorry, the chief—filed a report on! So I told them they could come in and take a look at the report and see if it matched.” He beams.

Prowl looks less enthusiastic. Prowl _always _looks less enthusiastic, than everyone, about everything. And, like, Chromedome _kind _of gets it, because if part of your job was getting up at four in the morning to go buy coffee and then slog your way to work, like, _anyone _would be kind of a bummer. “You misunderstand,” he says, “why would they be looking for a _John Doe?”_

Chromedome frowns. “Because… that’s what we _have,”_ he says, slowly, so Prowl will understand. “They lost the guy we found. It’s the same guy.”

“And he’s a John Doe _to them?” _Prowl says. “So _they _don’t know who he is, but they’re looking for him?”

Chromedome opens his mouth, then closes it. “Well, they—“ he tries, then blinks. “I mean… maybe they figured we wouldn’t have… his… huh.” 

“And you just _showed them _an _official police report,” _Prowl says, starting to look really steamed, “Tumbler, this is a _rookie—“_

“Not _yet!”_ Chromedome interrupts, feeling a little wrong-footed at being called a ‘rookie’ when he’s been on the job four whole months. “They’re on their way down now. I was _gonna _run it by you, obviously.”

Prowl frowns at him. Chromedome wishes, sometimes (read: all of the time) that Prowl didn’t fix him with such a suspicious look when he gets annoyed. Prowl’s suspicious of everyone and everything, which apparently has to include his own team members. The chief, Chromedome gets—after twenty years walking a beat in a big city like New York, you probably suck all that suspicion into your bloodstream. All that crime must make it hard to trust anybody, must get you hardened on the outside. And he’s older, and he likes to get everything Just So. But Prowl’s only ever worked _here,_ where _nothing _happens. Everybody knows each other, and the gas station clerk on the midnight shift brews him up a special pot of coffee that’ll taste a little better and gives it to him for free, because morning shifts are a real bitch, right? And as haggard as he _looks,_ he isn’t even that _old. _Chromedome looked at his file once, on a _real _slow night, and Prowl’s barely eight years older than he is. He isn’t even in his forties yet.

“How about,” Prowl says, “you just let me handle this, from now on. You can _learn_ from the experience. Quietly. From your desk over there.”

Chromedome opens his mouth to snap that _he _took the call, that _he’s _the one who was on duty, that _he _knows where the official report is, and that he can take care of things himself, thank you very much, so he’ll just be doing this himself, but he gets about as far as “I’m—“ before the door to the station opens and two gentlemen stroll through.

They’re hard to… describe, Chromedome realizes. They aren’t _unique _in any way. Medium height, medium-to-dark brownish hair. One of them is handsome, in that unquantifiable way that, like, K-Pop stars and stuff are. Like, he’s _handsome,_ but if you asked Chromedome to describe how or why, he couldn’t tell you. It’s not like he’s strong-jawed or strong-cheekboned or big-eyed or anything. After a moment of deliberation, he decides to smile at the two of them. The handsome one smiles back.

“We hear you have a John Doe,” the unhandsome one says, “we’re here to pick him up.”

Chromedome opens his mouth to say that, oh, he isn’t here, actually, they took him back to the hospital, then remembers what Optimus had told him earlier that night about not _telling _everyone about the crash because they didn’t want to go to court over whether or not the department was liable if they didn’t actually have to, and shuts it again. Which is fine, because Prowl is busy stealing his thunder and being _really _rude.

“This is a police station, not a child care center,” Prowl snaps, “if there’s someone you’re looking for, you can file a missing persons’ report. Would you like to follow me to my desk?”

The two men exchange a glance. “Sorry,” the handsome one says, “we were told on the phone that we could come check a report?”

“You were misinformed,” Prowl says. “Now, I would be happy to take a missing persons report for you, and check it against any John Does we may or may not have on file. I can take your contact information and get in touch with you if we have any news.”

Chromedome shuffles off to his own desk, shooting furtive glances towards Prowl as he and Unhandsome sit across from each other at his desk. Handsome stands behind Unhandsome, hands clasped behind his back, looking slightly fidgety. Unhandsome takes a lemon drop.

He dips his head down slightly, tapping a key here and there on the thick chunk of keyboard attached to his computer, trying to look innocuous. The computer monitor tells him the WiFi has disconnected.

“Alright, let’s get some details down,” Prowl is saying. “I need your name and address. Phone number, too.”

“Why do you need _my _name?” Unhandsome asks, around the lemon drop.

“So I know who’s filing the report,” Prowl says, in the tone of voice that police use with civilians and civilians use with idiots. “I need to know who to contact if he shows up. Can I get your name, address, and phone number, _please.”_

Handsome glances over his shoulder at Chromedome, who peeks over his monitor and gives him a thumbs-up of encouragement.

“Um,” Unhandsome says, shifting in his chair, “uh, Adam. Adam… Miser.”

“Adam Miser,” Prowl dutifully repeats as the clacking of his keyboard drowns out the details of their easier conversation. Chromedome also gets a little distracted checking his phone, because California Guy keeps texting him shirtless selfies and asking for advice, and it’s not like Chromedome _usually _gets the chance to slack off when Prowl’s at work.

He doesn’t _like _being talked down to, is the thing. He doesn’t _like _being ‘not good enough’-ed by a bitchy crankcase with a face like a withered Grecian statue. There’s a reason he moved out to Midian Hill instead of living with his parents in Kepler for the rest of his life. He hates being treated like a… like an idiot, or a drain, or a waste of time. _Especially _since he’s the _only _one in this office who can work a nightshift without developing sleep apnea or whatever. He’s just sick of—

“What do you mean, you can’t file it?”

“I _mean,_ I can’t _file _it,” Prowl says, in that same tone of voice. “We have a very strict principle in this district. Except in cases with particularly vulnerable individuals, like children or elders, a missing persons report can’t be filed until the person has been missing for seventy-two hours. I can fill the report for you now, but I can’t file it for several days.”

Handsome speaks up. “I’m sorry for interrupting, Officer Prowl,” he says, his voice all soothing tones with the implication of big, bright teeth, “our man isn’t exactly _vulnerable,_ but he might be _dangerous._ We’re—frankly, we’re a little worried about the residents of your town.”

“Oh, well, thank you for bringing up _that _piece of information at this stage in the conversation,” Prowl snaps. “I’m glad that was such a _relevant detail _for you. When _were _you planning on mentioning it?”

Behind his monitor, Chromedome rolls his eyes. Prowl’s on _such _a power-trip. He gets like that, sometimes, when he’s taking a statement with somebody getting emotional about something or other. He doesn’t like emotions. He’d take a Clorox wipe to them, if he could.

“I had _planned _on bringing it up while we were describing the missing person in question,” Handsome says, “please understand, we’re not _trying _to withhold information. We’re _just _trying to find our lost…” he pauses. Chromedome peers over the computer. Is he choked up, or something? Emotional?

“…Family member,” Adam Miser says, helpfully, just as Handsome says “…convict.”

Prowl stares at them. They stare at each other. Chromedome stares down at his phone, which is currently displaying something he’s _definitely _not supposed to be looking at while at work.

“…I hope the two of you are aware,” Prowl says slowly, “that filing a false report with the police is a criminal offense, punishable by up to five years of jail time.”

“Of course we know that!” Adam Miser jumps in defensively. “We’re… prison guards. We guard prisons. We know about _prison.”_

“So it _is _a convict,” Prowl says. Chromedome drops his phone on the ground. “Any _particular _reason you decided to lie?”

“I wasn’t lying,” Adam Miser says, “he _is _a family member. He’s… a member of… The Family. You know.”

“The Italians,” Handsome puts in helpfully.

“Yes, I’m aware of the American history of the mafia, thank you,” Prowl says nastily. “Can you provide any proof?”

“What do you need _proof _for?” Adam Miser asks, and then _immediately _amends “that’s not what I—that came out wrong, obviously—“

_“Obviously,”_ Prowl says. “This is a serious claim, gentlemen. If it’s true, it’s going to thrust the department into immediate action. But I can’t just expedite every missing persons claim by anyone who walks through that door and tells me they’ve got a _missing convict _who needs to be immediately apprehended. I need proof that he’s a criminal. I need proof that he’s in your care. I need proof that you two are officers of the law, and not two flunkies on a joyride through Appalachia trying to stir up trouble in _my jurisdiction._ I need paperwork. I need your badge numbers.”

Adam Miser moves like he’s going to say something, but Handsome puts a hand on his shoulder, and he stills. “We’re sorry, officer,” he says, “to be honest, we were off-duty when we got the call, and it’s been all hands on deck for the past few hours. We called this department two hours ago, and we were told that there was a John Doe we could check against our missing convict. We didn’t come here with the intent of filing a Missing Persons, so we… didn’t see any need to bring paperwork. We weren’t planning on apprehending him ourselves, just calling in the on-duty guards if we could ascertain that it was, in fact, him, and not some random so-and-so.”

“How about this,” Prowl says, “my good friend Officer Tumbler is going to take both of you and walk you back out that door. You can drive your vehicle back to your superior officer, get the paperwork on your supposed fugitive, and bring it back here. That’ll make this conversation a lot nicer.”

Handsome sighs heavily. “The longer we wait with this, the more danger this town could be in,” he says, and runs a hand through his hair. He sounds stressed, and Chromedome feels for him (in no small part because he’s got friends in this town, and his house, and all his stuff). “We’re a two hour drive from our main office. Four hours—there and back again—could be devastating to the safety of this town.”

“You’ve got thirty seconds to turn around and start walking,” Prowl says, “before I arrest both of you for obstruction and loitering. Tumbler.” Chromedome looks up. “You know where the door is, don’t you?”

“I—“ he starts, standing up, and flushes awkwardly when Handsome and Unhandsome turn to stare at him. “That is—right. Yes, sir. Come on, guys.”

He can feel their frustration coming off them in waves as they let him herd them gently back into the early morning. The sun’s not up yet, but there’s a distant purple glow on the Eastern horizon, promising a long and furiously warm day, and the birds are already doing their song and dance up in the treeline. Up close, he can see that Handsome is actually _really _handsome. It’s something about the eyes, maybe, or just the calm look in them.

“I’m—I’m really sorry,” he says to Handsome, when the door closes behind him and cuts them off from his Deputy’s prying eyes, “I didn’t realize Prowl was gonna get so—you know. So—so _that. _I mean, I should’ve expected it, he’s _such _an asshole, he’s _always_ such an—“

“Hey, hey,” Handsome interrupts, and puts a hand on his shoulder, “calm down, kid. We’re not mad at _you._ And you don’t have to apologize for anyone else.” He smiles. Chromedome was right—he _does _have big, bright teeth. “Believe me, I get it. I used to work up in Concord. Ever heard of it?”

“Uh. No?”

“Exactly. It’s up in Massachusetts. Nice town, nice people. I had a hundred bosses all exactly the same as that jackass.” He shakes his head. “Book-smart jerk-off bureaucrats who can only get off by putting other people down, makin’ us normal folks jump through hoops just to do our jobs. That’s why I moved down here in the first place, but…” He trails off, glances at his work partner.

“People are the same everywhere,” Adam Miser says, “assholes are unavoidable. There’s a lot of ‘em, and they’re hard to sieve through.”

“What he said,” Handsome says. “Look, uh—here, I’m gonna give you my number. The name’s Getaway. When you’re on civilian time, you can give us whatever tips you want.”

Getaway reaches into his wallet and produces a business card, which carries only his name and number on it. Chromedome takes it, chews his lip nervously. 

“Look,” he says, just as Handsome—Getaway—moves to go, “you didn’t hear this from me, but… if a John Doe isn’t in prison, that doesn’t mean he’s not… you know, in the _next _most likely place.”

Adam Miser and Getaway exchange glances. “You saying he’s at the hospital?” Adam Miser says.

“All I’m saying is—if you drove two hours out here, why just run home? That’s it.”

When he looks up, Adam Miser is smiling broadly at Getaway, who’s smiling broadly at him. “Thanks, kid,” Getaway says. “You did the right thing, telling us that. I know it might not feel that way, but this guy’s dangerous. If you see him, don’t engage.”

Chromedome nods, and stuffs the business card in his pocket, and he goes inside.

Prowl is watching the door when he comes in, sipping his coffee. He still hasn’t taken his jacket off, the one he wears in the morning no matter what time of year it is.  “Be careful with guys like that,” he says, “did you hear how much they were fishing?”

Chromedome thinks about this. “They seemed stressed,” he says diplomatically.

Prowl grunts and turns his gaze to his computer. “They didn’t have a picture,” he says, conversationally, “they didn’t even know his name when I asked for scant details. When they’re shifty like that, they’re probably stalkers. Maybe thugs, if the guy they’re looking for really is a criminal.” He glances up. “Don’t let guys like that push you around,” he adds, seriously, “they’re manipulative. We’ve got code for a reason. The chief’s going to want to know about that.”

And then Chromedome makes the easiest—and stupidest—mistake he could make: he does not tell Prowl about what he told Getaway. He does not show him the card. He does not tell his superior officer where they’re headed. He does not, in short, want to look stupid.

Instead, he says “I’ll put the pot on, my coffee’s getting cold. Yours okay?”

Ratchet looks up from his clipboard to see First Aid eyeing him critically. “What,” he says.

“It’s your day off,” First Aid says, head tipped to one side. “You should really go home.”

“I want to make sure this patient gets treated correctly,” Ratchet says, deciding not to mention that since he makes the schedules _and _since he’s salaried, it isn’t as though he’s putting anyone else out of work or grasping for hours. “I was in the car that hit him. I feel responsible.”

_“How,” _First Aid says. “You weren’t _driving. _It was the middle of the _night. _He shouldn’t have _been _there.”

“Interesting case,” Ratchet says, defensively, and starts walking down the hallway towards his patient’s room. Undeterred, First Aid pulls up at his elbow, matching his pace. “No shoes. Wasn’t inebriated. And Lottie says there were a lot of previous breaks on his leg when she took the x-ray.”

“Go _home,_” First Aid says, “go to _sleep. _Jesus, doc, if there’s no one else telling you this, I _will.”_

Ratchet glares at First Aid out of the corner of his eye. First Aid is easily the most competent doctor on his staff, besides himself. He’s smart, he’s well-respected by the rest of the team and the students, and he has this _extremely _annoying habit of telling Ratchet to take more time off. If he were cynical, Ratchet would say it’s because First Aid is trying to assume power in the hospital and push him out of his hard-earned position. If he were honest, he’d say it’s because First Aid cares about people, and has picked up a very frustrating ‘concern’ for Ratchet’s ‘health’.

As he doesn’t like either theory, Ratchet has decided on a third one—First Aid is probably the youngest in a family with a lot of kids, and can’t sustain himself without someone older to absolutely _infuriate._

“Fine,” Ratchet says, “just let me finish this and I’ll go home. I want to check in with him quickly, that’s all.”

“You’re _sure,” _First Aid says, looking doubtful. “You won’t mysteriously find another patient who needs your immediate special attention, and then not tell me until I find you still here, four hours later?”

“I’ve never done that!”

“You’ve done it twice in as many weeks,” First Aid says. “Ratchet, I know it’s hard for you to trust other people with your work, but you’re not running this machine by yourself anymore. It’s okay to let go of some of the responsibility. We’re going to pick it up for you.”

Ratchet stops, standing at the door. His hand is frozen on the knob, his jaw tight. “It’s not that,” he says, feeling a little shocked. “It’s…”

_All I have, _he doesn’t say, because he doesn’t owe First Aid or anybody else the ugly secrets he knows about himself. “…It’s not that,” he repeats instead, feeling slightly inadequate.

“Sure,” First Aid says, sounding unconvinced. “Last patient. Then you’re going _home, _promise?”

“Fine. Promise.”

“Even if a guy gets wheeled in and all of his organs are scrambled and we think he’s an alien abduction victim for real?”

“Where do you _get _this stuff?” Ratchet asks. “You watch a lot of TV?”

“You even _own _a TV?”

“Shut up,” Ratchet says, and opens the door.

In the two hours since picking the stranger up and moving him through the various stages of identification and recovery, Ratchet has learned a lot of things about his new mystery patient, and all of them concern him. John Doe (or “number three”, as Lottie has taken to calling him after finding a patch on the shoulder of his jumpsuit simply marked 3, black stitching on yellow) is about 6’9” and close to three hundred pounds, almost all of which is extremely dehydrated muscle. The callus on his feet, which is thick enough to avoid all puncture damage that you would expect from a run downhill through the woods, covers not just the bottom of his foot, but the top and ankle as well. The gums on his teeth and the cuticles on his fingernails are both drawn back and damaged from neglect.

He’s not bleeding internally at all, which is both good and confusing. Ratchet had feared severe brain damage, as after their initial conversation after the collision, he had passed out and not resurfaced, but scans came back clean. Lottie had used the emergency as an excuse to teach some of the night students how to take x-rays, and had chased him down to give him big, confused eyes and literally dozens of pictures showing a history of numerous breaks; not just in the ribs and legs, but all over the body.

And then, of course, there’s the mystery of Doe’s origins. He’d come from higher up the mountain, but had shot down through the forest, rather than down the road. His jumpsuit _looks,_ Lottie tells him, like the kind coal miners used to wear back in the seventies, tough grey denim with patches and a visibility strip across the chest. But the only coal mine in Midian Hill has been dried up for nearly thirty years. And he didn’t—doesn’t—have any shoes or work boots. Lottie had posited that he was some kind of feral child of previous coal miners, trapped in the woods for a thousand years, and had consequentially been taken off the case. Ambulon had offered to pull a blood sample and check to see if his DNA matched anyone in the system, which Ratchet had dismissed as unnecessary at this point in the procedure, but had praised as a good idea if they couldn’t find other identification. As he’d walked out of the room, he’d heard Ambulon behind him muttering “anyway, it’s probably a Rip Van Winkle thing” to the tiny crowd of doctors who had stopped by to stare at the chart, and had quietly kicked himself for shooting Lottie down so quickly.

“It’s a good thing you’re up,” he says to the stranger, who is sitting mostly upright, “otherwise, I would’ve had to wait days to figure you out. It’s my day off, you know.”

John Doe peers at him. He looks less dingy and mysterious in his hospital gown printed brightly with little dinosaurs. With his face wiped down with a warm towel, removing layers of grime, Ratchet can almost guess at his age, maybe in his thirties or forties. “You,” he says. “I know you.”

Ratchet nods, sits down in the chair next to the hospital bed. “I was the first responder, technically,” he says. “I was in the car that hit you. Sorry about that, by the way.” He smiles encouragingly. “My name’s Ratchet. What’s yours?”

John Doe stares at him, looking a little confused. “Ratchet,” he repeats back, “you’re Ratchet.”

“You got it,” Ratchet says. “That’s one hell of a concussion you’ve got there. Do you think you can remember your name? What’s _your _name?”

John Doe stares at him, frowning. “Megatron,” he says, frowning.

Ratchet does not comment again (as much as he wants to) that he’s never seen such bad whiplash in his career. Instead, he opts for diplomacy, and says “that’s a nice name.”

Megatron brightens. “Thank you,” he says, “I chose it myself.”

Ratchet’s heart sinks a little. He’s not going to get any useful information out of this interaction—leastways, nothing they can use to try and communicate with family or friends. Still, ‘Megatron’ is talking to him, and seems to be awake, more or less. That’s something. That’s something he can _work _with. “I just want to ask you a couple questions, Megatron,” he says, “then we’re going to let you get back to sleep. Can you tell me why you were up in the mountains?”

Megatron’s eyes have focused—insomuch as they can—on the pencil in Ratchet’s hands. “Pencil,” he says, firmly.

“You got it,” Ratchet replies. “Megatron, can you tell me—“

_“Pencil,” _Megatron says, emphatically this time, and holds out his hand as if to grab at it. On instinct, Ratchet pulls his hand away, and Megatron fixes him with a glare. 

“Yeah, it’s a pencil,” Ratchet says, “do you—do you _want _a pencil?”

“You can’t have it,” Megatron says. “Give it here.”

“How about this,” Ratchet says, diplomatically, “I will give you this pencil if you tell me one thing about yourself. Then, you can—have it. You can keep it. Whatever. Does that sound fair?”

Megatron stares at the pencil. He stares at Ratchet. “Fair,” he says. “We’ll trade.” He stretches out his open palm expectantly. Ratchet glances down at it, then puts the pencil in his hand.

“Alright,” he says, as Megatron takes the pencil in his hand and begins to twirl it back and forth like a nervous tic, “why were you up in the mountains? Do you remember?”

“That’s where we live,” Megatron says, and then, “pencil.”

“We? Who do you live with?” Ratchet watches him rub the pencil with fascination. “Do you have family up there? Anyone we can contact?”

“Yes, I have a family,” he says. “We all live in the mountains. B ut you won’t be able to contact them. You won’t even be able to find them.”

“Is there anyone else up there?” Ratchet asks, feeling hopeful. “Anyone who we might be able to get in touch with, who could come get you?”

Megatron narrows his eyes. “I told you lots of things,” he says, and holds up the pencil. “I said I’d tell you one thing.”

“Oh,” Ratchet says. “Um—do you want something else?” He rummages around in his pocket. “I’ve got… some spare change, uh, this random key—“

“Key?” Megatron perks up and stares at him, interested.

“Oh,” Ratchet says, “um, yeah, it’s not—it doesn’t unlock anything anymore—it used to be my house key, back in Chicago. They changed all the locks when I moved out, obviously, um. It’s not like it.” He stares down at the little silver key. The key that unlocks his home in Midian Hill is copper, and set on the same ring as his car keys and the key to his office. The key to his house in Chicago sits in the change pocket of his wallet and falls out whenever it unzips.

It’s—it’s garbage. He doesn’t need to keep it.

“It’s not like it does anything,” he says, staring at it, “if you want it, uh, to hang onto it while we talk…” he trails off and glances up at Megatron, who’s staring at him intently.

“Trade,” Megatron says, and holds his hand out.

Ratchet stares at his hand, and then back down at the key. It’s worthless. There’s no danger in giving it to him, and at least it would be out of his wallet. It’s a piece of garbage. He doesn’t _need _it.

After a long moment, he reaches out and drops the key in Megatron’s hand, staring at it hard. When he looks up, Megatron is looking at him and pulling his hand away. He feels vulnerable. Watched.

“There’s us, and there’s the others,” Megatron says, holding the key between his thumb and forefinger. “The others are dangerous. We have to stay together.”

Ratchet’s brow furrows. “What do you mean, dangerous?”

“They’re not like us,” Megatron says, “they’re cruel. We work hard, they take what we have.”

Suddenly, Lottie’s ‘feral coal miner’ theory is holding a little more weight. “Is it a… rivalry, of some kind?” Ratchet asks, wishing he had his pencil back. He feels like he should be writing this down.

“I don’t know what 'rivalry' is,” Megatron says, and then, holding up the house key, “Chicago.”

Ratchet sighs, and considers rummaging around in his pockets for something else he can give this guy when there’s a gentle knock on the door and First Aid pokes his head through. “Hey, boss,” he says, “I got two guys at the front desk who might be able to give us an ID?”

“Oh,” he says, “um, yeah, you should bring them back. I want you as an escort the whole time, though. Nothing like what happened up in Kepler, we don’t need that kind of heat.”

“You got it.”

“I want to see that they have paperwork before they sign anything.”

“Relax, boss,” First Aid says. “Just because we didn’t all study in the murder capital of the world doesn’t mean we trust everyone implicitly. I’ll be right here with them the whole time, make sure they don’t do anything criminal. Oh, and look at that!” With a flair, he prods one arm through the door, swinging Ratchet’s coat into the room. “It’s time for you to put this on and go home!”

“You’re too dramatic for your own good,” Ratchet says, sighing, and crosses the room to take the coat out of his hands. “Get out of here. We’ll talk later.”

As soon as First Aid closes the door, Ratchet sighs, slings his coat over one shoulder and returns to Megatron’s bedside. “Well, you heard the man,” he says, scratching at his neck, “I’m out of here, or I’m in trouble.”

Megatron stares up at him. “You’re going?” He asks.

“I’ll be back tomorrow-ish,” Ratchet says, wiggling a hand. “Today’s supposed to be my day off. I kind of poached this case. Don’t worry—First Aid’s smarter than he lets on. You’ll be just fine with him. Besides.” He shrugs. “Apparently he’s got a couple of guys who know you up front. They might be able to take care of you.”

Megatron keeps staring—as Ratchet turns his shoulders to go, he reaches out and grabs Ratchet’s hand in his. “Wait,” he says, “the key. Take it.”

“You don’t have to—I don’t need it—“

“I’m not stupid,” Megatron says firmly. “I know giving it to me hurt you. I don’t do that to people. Take it back.”

Ratchet stands there for several seconds longer than he needs to. He takes a moment to pause, to think, to stare at the key in Megatron’s hand. He stalls for thirty seconds. It’s that seemingly innocuous act, that hesitation, that changes the course of his life.

“Thank you,” he says quietly, and takes the key. “You’re right. I wish you weren’t—hanging onto this isn’t making my life any better.”

Only then does he turn to go—which means, when he opens the door a crack, they can hear the stranger’s voice from down the hall filtering in.

“We’ll need paperwork and the patient’s consent before you can go anywhere with him,” First Aid is saying.

“Sure, sure,” says a stranger, “we’re just here to identify—“

Ratchet doesn’t catch the rest of whatever the stranger is saying, whatever he’s trying to identify Megatron as, because at that moment his patient, leg in a cast, severely concussed, and on an I.V., violently throws himself out of bed and onto the floor, arms and legs scrambling.

“Woah!” Ratchet is at his side in a moment, catching the I.V. before it topples to the ground on top of him and grabbing for his shoulders. “Alright—alright—what’s happening, why—“

“No,” Megatron shouts, panic rising in his voice, “no, don’t let them—“

“It’s okay, it’s okay—“ blood is pumping in his ears as he struggles to prop Megatron up, getting his shoulders under one arm and trying to pull. With a soft _thunk,_ the weighted door closes, shutting them off from the sound of distant voices. “We’ll get you back up, I’ll call for help—“

“No!” With one giant hand, Megatron grabs Ratchet by the face, covering his nose and mouth, strong and vicelike. In a moment of dumb animal panic, Ratchet releases his grip on Megatron’s arm to scrabble desperately for air. He can’t get a grip—Megatron is so _ridiculously _strong, one arm already around him by _Ratchet’s hand, _holding him and bracing him down—

“You can’t,” Megatron is saying, and Ratchet forces himself to listen, swallows down his panic. He can’t breathe breathe breathe but he’s not asphyxiating, yet, he’s just terrified by how easily he’s been overpowered—“they can’t know I’m here—Ratchet, please, listen, they can’t see that I’m here—“

_“Mmph,” _Ratchet says, closing one eye and staring up desperately with the other, scratching at the hand on him. All at once, Megatron releases him and pulls his hand back, and Ratchet gasps for air.

“Please,” Megatron says, “please, help me.”

“Who—“ Ratchet coughs. His throat is hoarse, and his voice is weak. First Aid is in the hallway, he’s right outside, but Ratchet can’t call for help even if he wanted to. With all the small talk, it could be _minutes _before anyone walks in to help him. He has to stall. “Who are they?”

“They’re my owners,” Megatron says, and Ratchet feels his blood go cold, “please, I can’t go back—if they know I’m here, they’ll take me back—please—“

There are choices you make in your life—choices you make on the edge of a coin as it stands straight up, just before it collapses, choices you make before you think to breathe.

“There’s a backway out,” Ratchet says, “you’re going to need to lean on the I.V., I don’t have time to get it off you. Hang on to me and stay quiet.”

The patient rooms on the fourth floor each have a small closet, ostensibly filled with emergency first aid equipment for nurses who _just _used their last tongue depressor and forgot to refill their pocket before coming in. In practicality, they’re throughways, shortcuts that lead into the next hallway over in case of an emergency. With a grunt of effort and the rattling of the I.V. on its post, Ratchet manages to pull Megatron through and shut the door behind him, wrestling him through the packed space.

“Right through here,” he hears First Aid saying, and then, “uh. Huh. Wait.”

With a rattle and a tug, Ratchet gets through the closet and opens the door out the other side, giving a cordial peek up and down the hallway before dragging Megatron through after him. It would be a lot _easier, _he thinks to himself gruffly, if he wasn’t dragging a three-hundred pound giant behind him.

“Put some of your weight on the I.V.,” he mutters, “it’s not as fragile as it—_hrf—_looks.”

There’s a distant sound of soft shoes sprinting along the hallway, and Ratchet feels a burst of adrenaline as he shuffles Megatron around a corner. There’s no way he’s getting him down the stairwell, and it’s further to the elevators, but it’s a straight shot.

“Lottie,” he hears First Aid saying, distantly, as he tries not to squeak on the linoleum, “did you stop in to see Number Three just now?”

“Um, no, I was uh—I was with Mrs. Gates,” she’s replying, as Ratchet gets to the sliding doors and stabs furiously at the down button, “I thought Ratchet was with him?”

“Ratchet’s gone,” he says, “and Three is, too.”

“Oh, shit. Shit.” A pause. “Do you think he’s drilling us on the codes?”

“He better fucking not be, he’s supposed to be going home. I’m going to check on—“

Whatever First Aid intended to ‘check on’, Ratchet doesn’t overhear—there’s the gentle _bing _of the elevator, and the doors slide open.

“Okay, you—c’mon, get in,” Ratchet mutters, “I’m going to take the stairs, or it’ll look suspicious. I’ll get you down to—“

“Wait, wait,” Megatron says, and grabs Ratchet around the shoulders. The quiet squeaking of shoes on linoleum is approaching fast. “I can’t—alone—“

“You have to! We’re about to get caught!” He hisses back. “I promise, I will get you out of here, but you need to get _in _there and _out _of sight!”

Ratchet pushes, and Megatron stumbles back, lets go as he leans against the back wall of the elevator. “You _promise,” _he says, gripping the I.V. and reaching for the rail lining the perimeter.

“Yes,” Ratchet says, and steps back, “trust me.” And the door shuts between them.

As Ratchet turns towards the stairwell, First Aid rounds the corner and almost slams right into him. “Ratchet!” He says, stumbling. “Hey, did you—when you were in the room with Num—uh, the John Doe, did you maybe…”

“I took off right after I got my coat on,” Ratchet says, and feels the cool clarity of lying under pressure wash his mind clean. He knows how to do this. He’s done it his whole life just to make it from one day to another. “You know, I was thinking about what you were saying earlier—about trust—and I’m sorry. I know you can run this wing by yourself, I know you can—can problem-solve and deal with things on your own. I want to give you more responsibility to—“ he pauses, stares at the elevator buttons on the wall, and then refocuses on First Aid, his eyes narrowing. “What were you about to say?”

“Wh—I—what?”

“About the patient,” Ratchet says slowly, and crosses his arms. “You came running over here to ask me something. What were you about to say?”

“Uh,” First Aid says, “I was just going to—ask if you—still had his chart? I couldn’t find it in the room.”

Ratchet sighs in a gentle affected relief. Secretly, he’s quite impressed—First Aid came up with that lie just as fast as he’d come up with his own. Maybe he had strict parents growing up, too. “I thought you were going to tell me something _happened,” _he says, “in the two minutes I was out of the room. No, I put it in one of the desk drawers so it wouldn’t get picked up by mistake.”

“Alright. I’ll, uh, I’ll check there,” First Aid says, “thanks.”

Ratchet blinks at him. “Nothing _did _happen,” he says, “did it?”

“Are you just looking for an excuse to stay in this building for an extra ten minutes?” First Aid jabs an accusing finger up at him, and Ratchet throws up his palms in the universal _cool your jets _posture. “What was all that about trust, huh? I’m telling you one thing—start by trusting me on that! Go on, get out of here.”

“Fine, fine,” he says, a surge of relief as he passes First Aid and opens the door to the stairwell, “stop wagging your finger like an old maid.”

“Or what? Your strong Canadian Boyfriend (TM) will come beat me up?”

“I’ve told you before, he’s _definitely _real, and his arms are _huge,” _Ratchet says, smiling, and First Aid laughs. “I’ll see you Sunday.”

“You know, you could take some extra—“ 

The door shuts behind him, cutting off what’s probably about to be another lecture about how Ratchet has approximately two years of vacation time saved up and _when is he going to start spending it, you can’t take it with you_, and he sprints down the stairs. He has to get to the bottom, before anyone else calls the elevator—he has to get Megatron out into the parking garage.

But he’s fast. He’s always been fast.

Moments after he jams at the button on the bottom floor, the doors to the elevator peel open and Megatron falls out onto him. “You’re alright,” Ratchet mutters, pulling his arm over his shoulders, “my car isn’t far. Put your weight on the I.V., remember?”

“You didn’t leave me,” Megatron says, staring down at him. Ratchet huffs.

“Don’t make me regret it,” he says, “give me a little help here—we’ll put you in the back, that way you can lie down. The security cameras shouldn’t see you if you’re below the headrests…”

As he urges his patient into the back seat of the tiny grey sedan, Ratchet hears the gentle rising sound of an announcement, paging _Doctor Pinkerton to the fourth floor _in the sort of unobtrusive voice that would _never _insinuate an emergency code was being called. They’ll shut the garage down in a minute or two.

“Stay down,” Ratchet says, rolling slowly past the gate and flashing his badge at the electronic scanner. The enormity of what he’s done is swelling thickly in his lungs. “And hold on tight. I drive pretty fast.”


	2. Exodus 4:10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, another chapter! It's here!
> 
> Sorry about the wait on this one--I'm a weird, sick little person, and I was out of commission for about two weeks because my lungs just decided to stop working for a hot second. This is, unfortunately, pretty common for me, and I can't promise that it's going to change any time soon. That said, I hope these chapters are long enough that a month+ doesn't seem like such a terribly long time to wait.
> 
> WARNINGS: the following chapter includes mentions of abuse, dehumanizing language, casual homophobia, and minor medical complications.

_ And Moses said ... I am not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since thou hast spoken unto thy servant: but I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue. _

“You think that was our guy?” Atomizer asks, as Getaway feeds another four quarters into the vending machine. The bag of _Sun Chips TM_ that he already bought is stuck, hanging by one pathetic corner from the metal coil.

“There’s no way it wasn’t,” Getaway says. “You want some Sun Chips TM? Apparently, I’m getting two bags.”

“Sure. I’m starving.”

Getaway hands him one of the bags, and they lean against the vending machine, munching quietly, casually cutting the rest of the empty waiting room off from the sole source of Rolos in the building.

“Were you on shift last night?” Getaway asks after a moment. Atomizer shakes his head. The girl at the front desk, a haughty, pretty looking thing with a long nose and a longer face, shoots them another furtive glance. Getaway smiles at her. She does not smile back.

“What do we do now?” Atomizer asks. “I mean. We know he’s here. Should we track him down?” He brightens slightly. “I hear the cyclops keeps dogs. Should we go get a dog?”

“Not the right kind of dog,” Getaway says, and Atomizer slumps. “I say we go into town and see if they’ve got a motel, or a bed and breakfast or something. We get some rest, come back swinging.”

“What do we do about the cargo?”

“Nothing. Wait it out.” He runs a hand through his hair in a move he knows looks both casual and sexy, and glances over at the girl at the desk. She’s typing something on the computer, not even looking at him. She’s probably a bitch, anyway. Girls with acrylic nails are always trouble. “The police know about it. The hospital has to deal with it. We let them sort each other out.”

“Not to be Johnny Raincloud, here, but their cops didn’t seem like _super _geniuses,” Atomizer says. “I mean, the kid just told us everything. And if they wouldn’t take _our _missing person claim, I kind of doubt they’re gonna take one from the hospital.”

“Sure they will. An escaped hospital patient, that’s a ‘vulnerable person’ if ever I heard of one. Anyway, I’m not sure the kid’s _dumb,”_ Getaway muses. “He’s probably just a faggot—not that there’s anything _wrong _with that,” he hurriedly tacks on, as Atomizer fixes him with a murderous glare, “I’m just saying—“

“I suggest you _don’t _just say.”

“It wasn’t anything _bad,” _Getaway mumbles, “I was _just _going to say I can have that affect on people. It’s not like I have a _problem _with that.”

“I sure hope not,” Atomizer says icily, “you know, I voted for Hillary.”

“Right, right, of course,” Getaway says, nodding.

They munch in silence for a minute. “Hey, I hear the cyclops makes all kinds of fake paperwork,” Atomizer says, brightening again, “I bet he could make us some real _official _looking stuff to give to the chief of police.”

“We’re not going back to the head office without that cargo,” Getaway snaps, a little meaner than he intended. Atomizer flinches under his gaze. “You know what they’re gonna do to us? You saw what they did to Ronnie, and that was just for filching a pack of cigarettes. We somehow managed to lose a sixty-thousand dollar investment! If we can’t find it, we’re _proper _fucked!"

Atomizer blinks at him. “You _were _on shift,” he says, realization dawning, “weren’t you?”

Getaway slumps helplessly against the machine, rattling minicakes in their packages. “I can’t _believe _how fast those guys can run,” he says. “I turned my head for a minute, just to get ’Wave to quit pushing the old one around, and the next minute, he was just gone! I thought we took their shoes back when they got back to camp for a _reason.”_

Atomizer nods sympathetically. “They’re big, man,” he says noncommittally, “come on, let’s go find that motel. I bet someone’s just leaving their room now, they’ve probably got tons of vacancies.”

Getaway stares straight down into his empty bag of Sun Chips TM. “Breakfast first,” he announces, “it’s almost eight, I haven’t eaten _real _food in like twelve hours.”

There are a number of things in the house that Megatron recognizes, and an even number of things that he does not. In the wake of his unfamiliar clumsiness, the dizzy way his surroundings focus and unfocus, his primary goal is not to break anything.

When they first walked into the house from the garage, Ratchet had said something about taking a moment to think, and had promptly collapsed in total exhaustion. Megatron sees it all the time, when his Brothers push too hard or share too much of their rations. He had caught Ratchet before a fall could rattle his bones, and limped through what he could of the house to find a soft spot to put him. There’s a lovely soft carpet in a room with lots of windows, and he lays the doctor out gently, bundling his jacket into a square and tucking it under his head. 

With the pencil he acquired in his trade with Ratchet earlier that morning, Megatron makes a list on the first scrap of paper he can find.

_ In order of concern:  
__1\. Ratchet_  
_2\. Water_  
_3\. Needle_  
_4\. Exploration_

For such a short list, of course, he doesn’t need the pencil. But there’s such a thrill in having it. Not just having it—in having earned it. It belongs to him. He peers over his shoulder at Ratchet, who is lying flat and breathing evenly, then carefully crosses the first order out.

Water is next. His mouth is sticky, and his throat burns. There are a number of taps in the house, and no way to tell if any of them are clean. He decides to chance the one in the kitchen, fiddling with the handles until cool water is pouring out. There are cups, but all of them are made of glass, and Megatron is afraid of breaking them. Instead, he collects it in his hands and drinks from his palms. When he’s done, he turns the water off and walks out of the kitchen.

It smells weird, here. It doesn’t smell like the mine or either the High or Low Houses, and it doesn’t even smell like the outdoors. There’s something completely foreign in the air, and the whole space is very cold. Never usually one for Middle Mattress, Megatron finds himself shivering in the flimsy gown.

He abandons the task of dealing with the needle in his arm to hunt for blankets.

The house is enormous—enormous. Every time he thinks, surely, he’s found the end, he finds another door with another room inside it. Huge and white and starched. It’s so white. It’s so much whiter than anything Megatron has ever seen. He finds a door with fabrics on the other side and they’re white, white, grey, white, and that alien smell radiates off of them in waves, makes him stumble and reel.

But he is cold, and he has dealt with worse than smell before. He pulls them out and unbundles them to get a feel for the size, separates out the two largest ones, and bundles the rest back up to return to the pantry(Closet? One is for foods, and the other is for non-foods. He can’t remember which is which). He wraps the largest one around himself, cursing as it folds awkwardly over the I.V., and carries the other one back to the room he left Ratchet in.

“Ratchet,” he says, nudging the sleeping form with his foot. “Ratchet. I need help with my arm.”

“Grnhf,” Ratchet says.

“Ratchet,” Megatron says again, and shakes him a little.

“Grnhf,” Ratchet says again. “Piss off, Pharma.”

He rolls over. Megatron looks down for a moment, then carefully drapes the second blanket over him and limps away back into the kitchen.

It’s frustrating not to have help, but the principle of removing a metal needle is the same as pulling a long splinter of wood from flesh. As long as he keeps pressure on the wound and pulls at the correct angle, the bleeding will be minimal and the pain even less so. Anyway, it needs to come out. The stick it’s attached to—the I.V.—is impairing his movement quite badly. It forces him to stay up on his feet, gimping around on his broken leg like a thing half-dead. Crawling is horribly undignified, but the pain would be much less, and his movement far quicker. It’s just a matter of adjusting the variables. So much space to cover, an unidentified period of time.

He is unsure of how _much _he can trust Ratchet. Currently, the scales are tipped in the doctor’s favor—he keeps giving to Megatron, more than their trades can justly owe. If Megatron is unable to return the scales to their proper balance, there is nothing keeping Ratchet from simply throwing him out on his ear. And he needs time—he needs time to heal, to hide out, to sort himself out and formulate his plan.

He will repay him. He _must _repay him. Megatron is not a stupid or foolish man—he saw very clearly the terror, the naked fear on Ratchet’s face at the prospect of hiding him away. Felt the panic rising in him throughout the entirety of his flight. Fear of being caught? Fear of being alone with Megatron? True, Megatron could overpower him easily—he did it once, he could do it twice, a thousand times; the doctor is not a strong man; but, and Megatron knows this with a cold certainty, that he is a _good _man. He tipped the scales out of his favor because he, what, pitied Megatron? Feared for him? Because he was begged? Because he is _good._ ‘The universe chosen by a benevolent being to exist must be the best of all possible worlds’, Leibniz—satire on the theology by Voltaire.

“The dawn will find me,” he mutters to himself, “alone in some strange land. But men are kindly; they’ll lend a helping hand.” ‘_So said my master, and he must know / it must be so, it must be so.’ _Libretto on the satire by Hellman (communist, blacklisted).

The needle comes out cleanly. It hurts. He wraps the wound up in the excesses of cloth that the blanket around him provides, close across his body. He sits down on the ground, and leans against the wall, and feels relieved to be off his leg.

He will make things to be even, when Ratchet is awake and somewhat revived enough to appreciate it. That’s it. There’s no reason to prolong worry. Besides, it seems Ratchet has some time before he even returns to the land of the living, and the behemoth of the building stretches out before him. Should worst come to worst, should Ratchet pull the footing out from under him and send him back up the mountain, at least he will be able to tell his Brothers of this white mansion. Perhaps he’ll tell them it was made of ice, excite their spirits some and make them smile even in their despair.

On hands and knees, dragging his blanket along behind him and feeling extremely foolish for it, he comes across stairs that go on and on and on. He sits at the bottom of them, staring all the way up. He stares for a long time.

And then he begins his ascent.

The police arrive at 8 AM, Prowl’s face hardened all over and Chromedome stifling yawns behind his hands. First Aid draws the short straw and sits them down in his office while Lottie gets to take the first O.R. shift. He explains the situation as best as he can.

“We could check the security cameras,” Chromedome suggests. “Check the footage. If he had a broken leg, he couldn’t have gotten far.”

“We don’t _have _security cameras in that building,” First Aid says.

“What?” Prowl’s brow furrows even deeper. “How can a hospital not have a security system?”

“Hospitals cost money to run,” First Aid says honestly, and shrugs. “That building’s the newest acquisition, and it was a donation. We’ve been petitioning, but we just don’t have the money to run a system like that building-wide.”

“But what if something _happens?” _Prowl snaps, throwing an arm out. First Aid doesn’t so much as flinch. “A patient just disappeared under your nose and you have no way to find out who he was or where he went. How can you just… not have preventative measures for that?”

First Aid blinks. “This is Midian Hill, officer,” he says, “things _don’t _happen here.”

Prowl looks like he’s about to go into one of his blind furies again, and Chromedome reaches forward to put a comforting hand on his shoulder. All at once, he sighs, and slumps back in his chair. “Well, that’s all the questions we have,” he says, “thank you, First Aid, you’ve been a huge waste of time.”

“Oh, of course,” First Aid replies unflinchingly, “the same for you. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m actually needed in the operating theater. And, apparently, not here.”

Prowl stiffens. “Careful, doctor,” he says nastily, “that’s no way to talk to a police officer. One of these days, you’re going to land yourself in trouble for refusing to cooperate.”

“Yeah, ‘cause I’m sure your _boss _would really appreciate you arresting me and forcing Ratchet to _stop _taking the first vacation he’s had in a decade,” First Aid says, getting up. “I bet you’d get a raise and a promotion and everything.”

Chromedome is ready to jump bodily between the two men in the silence that follows. What he doesn’t expect is for Prowl to break the silence, eyebrow cocked, saying “Ratchet’s taking a _vacation?”_

“I mean, it’s more like we locked the door behind him when he left last night,” First Aid admits, while Chromedome tries desperately to follow what’s going on, “and I’m going to leave him some very firm voicemails and hope I don’t get fired.”

“Well, you’re doing the Lord’s work,” Prowl admits, grudgingly. “I wouldn’t try it in your position.” He starts to stand up, dusting his pant legs off. “What was he doing here last night? Tailgate says her aunt was at work especially late, supervising him.”

First Aid blinks. “You didn’t know?” he asks. “Hold on, I might have something to add to my statement. Sorry, I assumed it had already come up, since your boss was there too.”

“What?” Prowl says.

“Um,” Chromedome says, “I actually did kind of try to mention this.”

“What did Optimus do?” Prowl snaps, and Chromedome shrinks back a little bit.

“He was driving,” First Aid supplies. “At least, that’s what I was told. He and Ratchet were in the car at the same time, and they hit this guy. That’s why he was in the hospital. Ratchet picked up the case and came in on his day off, I guess to put the chief in a better legal position.”

“Jesus,” Prowl spits, “what, did he give him a handy while he was at it?”

“That’s a little above my pay grade,” First Aid shoots back unflappably. “What I know is, your boss probably has some more information about this guy, and it might help your investigation.”

Chromedome is quietly quite impressed with First Aid. Well, he’s _always _pretty impressed with First Aid, on the few occasions they’ve had the chance to yuck it up—he’s smart, and funny in that dry kind of way, and _totally _cool under pressure. He guesses that has to be part of being a doctor, but medical school can’t possibly have training courses for dealing with _Prowl._

“My boss?” Prowl is saying. “What about _your _boss? You didn’t tell me he was treating the man who made a break for it.”

“It was kind of a teaching patient,” First Aid says, shrugging. “We were all sort of the practitioner. We had students coming by the whole time he was here. Velocity taught them how to do x-rays on various parts of the body with—“

“Who saw him last?” Prowl interrupts.

“I mean—“ First Aid’s brow furrows, and he looks up for inspiration. “I guess it _might’ve _been Ratch,” he says, after a moment of deliberation. “Oh, God, you’re not going to go interrupt his vacation, are you? Please, officer, he hasn’t taken one since the summer of ’05. I worked so _hard _for this. We changed all the passcodes on all of the doors.”

Prowl sighs. “Look, I’m with you on this one,” he admits. “I’m going to talk to the chief first, make sure we have as many pieces of this thing put together. But I can’t just _not _talk to a witness because he’s _relaxing.”_

“Maybe we could send the chief to go talk to him,” Chromedome suggests hesitantly, and both men blink at him like they’d forgotten he was there in the first place. They might have. Mostly, he’s just been sitting in the back and taking notes (and letting Prowl yell at him, like a dog gnawing on a squeaky toy). “I mean, they’re friends, right? And if they were both there—I mean, the chief might have some more in-depth questions about what happened, if he knows what happened on the drive…” he trails off. Prowl is glaring. First Aid is giving him an appraising look.

“That’s—“ Prowl snaps.

“—Not a bad idea,” First Aid interrupts. Then, “of course, I wouldn’t presume to tell you two how to do your _job._ It just seems like a lead most investigations wouldn’t have. They might be able to help each other.”

Prowl glares at First Aid. “Why _are _you still here, doctor?” He says. “Don’t you have an emergency to tend to?”

First Aid raises an eyebrow, then pushes his chair back. “Of course,” he says, “let me just get the door for you gentlemen.”

As quickly as they were admitted, Prowl and Chromedome find themselves being ushered out—first out of First Aid’s office, then out of the wing, and finally out of the building, a series of polite but no-nonsense intellectuals who have the audacity to know their rights pushing them towards the doors and out into the growing morning light. Prowl curses as they step out onto the concrete, glaring up at the glowing red cross like it’s just insulted his mother.

“I can’t _believe _this,” he snarls, “can you _believe _him?”

Chromedome wants _desperately _to roll his eyes and snap back at Prowl that _whose _fault is this, again? But he doesn’t. “I don’t think we’re going to get another interview with him,” he says instead, sympathetically. “Not without a warrant.”

“And you,” Prowl says, coolly. “What the hell was that? You want to give this case to the chief?”

“What?” Chromedome crosses his arms. “I don’t want to _give _this case to anybody. There’s only three of us, Prowl. We can’t just leave him out of this, especially when he was obviously involved. And let’s face it, he’s the one who probably knows what to _do. _Sorry,” he tacks on, as Prowl’s glare deepens, “but it’s true. He’s handled _real cases_ before. What have we done, gotten cats out of trees? Handed out parking tickets? We should take guidance on this one.”

Prowl shakes his head and blows air out of his nose. “I can’t believe you,” he says, sounding tired and bitter. “Don’t you get it? Those creeps last night, this mystery patient—the chief—something is _happening,_ Chromedome, really _happening! _Here! To _us! _I can’t believe you don’t want to figure this out!”

“I _do _want to figure this out,” Chromedome says gently, holding his hands up appeasingly. “And I want us to all work together to make sure it _does _get figured out. We need to get all the information we can, and that means trusting the chief and letting him _help _us.” And then, because he can’t stop himself, he adds “we have code for a _reason, _Prowl. You can tell the chief about all this, or I can, but I’m not going to let anyone push me around. Not even you.”

He raises his shoulders by his ears, ready for the verbal slap that’s coming his way. What he doesn’t expect is for Prowl to sigh, or to say “no, you’re right.”

“Huh?” Chromedome says. “Wait, what?”

“I _said, _you’re _right,” _Prowl huffs, “don’t make me repeat myself when I know your ears work _just _fine, Tumbler. The chief possesses knowledge of the… accident… that would be beneficial to us in finding our missing person. I’ll… talk to Optimus about getting in contact with Ratchet. He’ll be in the station around noon.”

“Great,” Chromedome says, “I mean, I’m glad we’re on the same page! What time is it?”

“What? Oh.” Prowl checks his watch. “9:15. Why?”

“Because I’m _tired, _Prowl,” Chromedome says, “can we go back to the office so I can clock out? I’ve been on the job for twelve hours.”

“Right. Of course.” Prowl clears his throat, and they head towards the patrol car. “I guess you wouldn’t want to get coffee on the way back, if you’re going home to sleep.”

“I mean, if you need a caffeine boost, I’ll sit in the car while you chat the gas station girl up,” Chromedome says, and elbows the deputy in the ribs. “I’ve got a _little _time to kill—“

“No,” Prowl interrupts, unlocking the doors with his key fob, “no, that’s alright. I’ll just drive you back. I’ve got some paperwork to get started on, anyway.”

Ratchet wakes up in absolute agony. His shoulders are sorer than they’ve ever been, and his mouth is dry and hot as desert heat. He doesn’t even want to get _started _on his back.

He’s lying, sprawled out, on the floor of his living room, with his coat under his head and his winter quilt thrown over him. A quick check of his wristwatch tells him he’s been asleep for almost eighteen hours. With a moan, and no small amount of procrastination, he starts to force himself up onto his feet.

The house is awfully quiet. _Well, _he corrects himself, it’s exactly as quiet as it always is, that suffocating presence of silence he’s used to coming back to. But given the events of last night…

He frowns. Come to think of it, he doesn’t know how much of that actually happened in the first place. The whole thing feels like a stiff and distant dream, born out of stress and too much decaf late at night. Maybe he fell asleep in the car, and Optimus carried—guided, he would have guided—him into the house. But—Optimus wouldn’t leave him on the floor. If nothing else, he appreciates the aches and pains of a rapidly aging body. Besides, there’s a couch in the next room over.

“Megatron?” He calls quietly, pulling the quilt around his shoulders and peering around the room. “Are you here?”

There’s no answer. Slowly, Ratchet gets to his feet, feeling rather than hearing the popping of his knees and elbows, and walks into the kitchen. Standing by the sink, as ominous as a mask of death, the I.V. stands on its post, the bag empty, the needle hanging loose from the end of the cord.

“Shit,” he hisses, and then, appealing to the house at large, calls “Megatron? Where are you? Are you alright?”

“In here,” his voice answers, and Ratchet stumbles towards it, pushing open the door to the study to find his unwelcome guest sitting on the floor, surrounded by books.

Ratchet blinks in surprise, then heaves a frustrated (and slightly relieved) sigh. “Of course,” he mutters, “well, you seem healthy enough to make a mess.”

Megatron stares back at him, brows furrowed, and Ratchet takes the sight of him in a little more thoroughly. He’s changed out of the hospital gown and into some of Ratchet’s running clothes, sweatpants and some Run For A Cause shirt, which he earned back in 2008 only to find they only had 3XLs left and subsequently buried deep in his wardrobe. He’s also draped a large flannel sheet over himself, part of which appears to be taped to his arm and covered in blood. All around him are tiny piles of books, which have been pulled from the bookshelves on every wall of the room. The total effect is of a tiny volcanic island, jutting up out of a sea of outdated medical literature.

“Books,” he says, and holds up Costanzo’s _Physiology, second edition._

“That’s out of date,” Ratchet says, before he can stop himself. “What are you doing in here?”

“Reading.” Megatron stares across the room at one of the bookcases. The bottom two shelves have been cannibalized, but the seven above them seem mostly intact. “You have a lot of books.”

“I used to teach some of them,” Ratchet says. “You know, _Physiology_ isn’t exactly a potboiler. If you—want something to read, I could find you something a little more…” he trails off. This isn’t what he’s _supposed _to be talking about. “Where did you find those clothes?”

“Up the stairs,” Megatron says. “I was exploring.”

“Is that why you took your I.V. out?” Ratchet rubs his temple. There’s a caffeine-withdrawl migraine starting to spread inside his skull. “You shouldn’t just yank those out. It’s dangerous.”

“I was careful,” he says, frowning. “I put pressure on it.”

“You should have—woken me up,” Ratchet says, feeling distressed, “I could have helped. I could’ve removed it. What if something had gone wrong?”

“I tried,” Megatron replies, “if you’d been any more dead to the world, you’d’ve been a corpse.”

Ratchet pauses. One of his eyebrows is rocketing up towards his hairline. “So, _there’s _your personality,” he says, after a moment. “I was wondering when it’d show up.”

Megatron blinks up at him, an expression of mortification flitting across his face, then stares down hard at the ground. “Books,” he repeats, nervously.

Well. That’s interesting.

He certainly _could _push. That’s a bright red flag marked _Tell _if Ratchet’s ever seen one—but he’s still tired, and hungry, and yearning for coffee. Besides, pushing him now might lock him out of Megatron’s trust, and he needs the kid to believe that they’re on the same side if he’s going to get any information out of him later.

Instead, he rubs one of his eyes with his ring finger and glances at the computer on his desk. “Alright, keep your secrets,” he mutters. “You still look pretty dehydrated. Let’s get some food into you, come on.”

Due to the nature of his work (and the nature of his personal life), Ratchet doesn’t keep a lot of food stocked in his house. Every week on Friday, after he’s gotten as much sleep as he can wring out of himself, he goes to the grocer and buys up whatever beef or chicken is on sale, cooks it into a stew or a chili, and makes as many tupperwares full of it as a week at work will take. The canned beans and spices tend to sit for longer, allowing him to buy them in bulk, and he only uses the canned stock on his shelves when he can’t make his own out of the leftover hock from whatever meat he was working with. It’s frugal living, the kind of lifestyle he hasn’t needed for years, but which he clings to the way a child clings to her mother.

There’s a full tupperware left, one of the big squares that he’d probably have over the course of two days. It smells okay, and it doesn’t burn him when he pulls it out of the microwave and spoons a quarter of it into a bowl. “Here,” he says, and puts it down on the kitchen table in front of his guest. “I know it can be hard to eat after a stint at the hospital, but you’ve got to try to get something down.”

Megatron stares intently into the bowl. “You gave me a spoon,” he says.

“Uh,” Ratchet says, “yes? Yes. Do you want a fork?”

Megatron stares up at him. “You shouldn’t just hand me this,” he says very seriously, “you don’t know me. I could kill you with this.”

Ratchet thinks about this. “Yes,” he says, after a moment, “but I mean, you could kill me with your bare hands. Are you planning on killing me with that?”

Megatron stares at him, something incomprehensible flitting across his face. “You saved my _life,” _he says, after an uncomfortably long pause.

“Not really an answer to my question,” Ratchet says, “but I’ll accept it. Please eat something.”

Megatron frowns up at him, and for a moment, Ratchet is worried he’s going to have to shuffle his way around another unintentional death threat—then, he refocuses on the chili and starts to carefully spoon it into his mouth. Ratchet lets out a resigned sigh of relief and turns to fiddle with the coffee pot. After a moment of deliberation, he doubles the grinds in the filter and the water in the tank. He sort of doubts Megatron drinks coffee—hell, he might not even know what it is—but his mother raised him to make too much of everything when there’s a guest staying in his house, and the instincts aren’t dulled by the fact that his guest is a walking Byronic wet dream with behavioral tics he hasn’t even started to figure out.

The urge to ask questions is _killing _him, the desire to find out, to dig—but Megatron is busy, slowly and meticulously scooping spoon after spoon of food into his mouth, and Ratchet bites his tongue for the chance to keep his patient moving.

He can’t stand idle—he takes a washcloth and wipes impotently at the spotless counter, opens the cabinets and makes little mental tallies of his supplies—four cans of beans, two of condensed milk, three quarters of a tub of Lawrey’s seasoning—

“You’re distressed,” Megatron says, and Ratchet startles. “Why won’t you sit down?”

“Sit—I don’t need to sit,” Ratchet says, unable to look at him. “I just slept. I don’t need to rest up.”

“Are you going to eat?”

“I’m not hungry,” Ratchet says, instead of _I couldn’t possibly eat when I feel like I’m going to throw up this badly, _which is the truth. “I need coffee first. Do you want coffee? Do you—do you know what coffee is?”

“Of course I know what _coffee _is,” Megatron says, sounding a little offended. “I’m concussed, not _stupid.”_

Ratchet’s head whips around in surprise and locks eyes with his guest. Megatron, immediately and visibly chagrined, stares back, wide-eyed, then hurriedly averts his gaze and stares down into his bowl.

“What the _hell,” _Ratchet mutters, “where did that—who the hell _are _you?”

Megatron doesn’t move for a moment, huge shoulders hunched in and up like he’s trying to protect himself from a blow across the head; then, he stares back up, eyes burning in direct and vicious eye contact. “I am Megatron,” he says, “I am the speaker of the Low House and the scribe of Terminus, and I am _not afraid_ of you.”

Immediately, Ratchet’s hands are up in the universal _calm down _signal. “I’m sorry,” he says on autopilot, voice calm and reassuring, “I wasn’t trying to frighten you. I’m just—confused.” He gestures at the chair across the table from Megatron. “Can I sit?”

Megatron squints up at him. “I don’t understand why you’re confused when _you’re _the confusing one,” he says, and then, “it’s your house. I cannot be deferred to in such matters.”

“Okay,” Ratchet says, and sits.

“It is important that we discuss debt,” Megatron says, straightening his shoulders out and pretending he wasn’t just puffed out like a cornered cat, “you have saved my life, and done a number of other things which will take time to calculate. Whereas, I have done remarkably little for you.”

Ratchet stares into Megatron’s bowl, which is empty and almost clean, the edges scraped down and scooped up and put away. “Uh, sure,” he says. “Are you still hungry?”

Megatron stares at him oddly. “Yes,” he says, “I believe we should go from the beginning of our first encounter and attempt to assign value.”

“Let’s not,” Ratchet says, and reaches across the table to take Megatron’s bowl. “I’m going to give you something more to eat, and then we’re going to talk about what we’re going to do with _you. _Here.”

He takes the bowl by the lip, only for Megatron to clamp down on it with both hands. “You can’t,” he says, “there’s too much that I already—I can’t afford that.”

“I’m not _selling _it to you,” Ratchet says, and puts a comforting hand on one of Megatron’s, “I’m giving it to you. Okay? It has no value to me, I probably—probably have to throw it out tomorrow or the day after, anyway, it’s almost a week old and I can’t possibly eat it myself. I feel like I’m going to throw up.”

“Why? Are you sick? Have you been poisoned?”

“No, I—poisoned? No, I’m just thinking about _you _and I’m starting to lose it,” Ratchet admits, and drops his face into his palm. “I kidnapped a patient! From _my _hospital! I’m going to lose my job and, and I’m going to go to jail for a _very _long time, I’m old and busted enough that I’ll probably _die _there—I’m only free as long as it takes for someone to figure out you’re here and, and what _I _did, and—“

“You saved my life,” Megatron says, “Ratchet, they would have taken me back. They would have killed me.”

“I don’t know that! I don’t know that I shouldn’t have, gone out into the hallway to tell First Aid to send them back, I don’t know that I—“

“They would have killed you the second they knew you had me,” he says, “and anyone else who got in their way. You saved my _life.”_

“Yeah, I doubt the state of West Virginia’s going to take that as a legal defense,” Ratchet says. “I had no, reasonable belief—reasonable doubt? Reasonable, whatever, I didn’t _have _it! It doesn’t matter, I made the _wrong _call and I’m going to _jail—“_

_“No one_ is going to take you to jail,” Megatron says, and grabs him firmly by both wrists, trapping him in place. In a panic, Ratchet tries to pull free, and finds himself effortlessly held fast. “You saved my life. Do you understand that? You saved my life. I’m not going to let _anyone _do _anything _to you. No one will take you away. No one will hurt you.” He breathes out of his nose, hard. “I owe a debt to you that I _cannot _repay,” he snarls, “that burns the core of me. There is no insult worse than a lifetime of debt! But while I am in your custody, I will protect you from unjust consequences for your just actions.”

“But I can’t just _hide _you here forever,” Ratchet says, slightly hysterical and in no way comforted by the vicelike grip holding him in place, “you’re not—a cat that I’m hiding from my parents because they wouldn’t let me get a pet! The police are looking for you. The hospital is looking for you. And they’ve seen you, they know what to look for.”

“You don’t have to hide me _forever,” _Megatron assures him. The grip flexes, and Ratchet realizes that Megatron is squeezing reassuring patterns into his arms with his fingers. He’s trying to calm him down. “Only until I’m recovered enough to get out of here on my own. When my leg is repaired, I’ll go, and you’ll never hear from me or be troubled by me again.”

Ratchet sighs and closes his eyes. The hands on him are too strong to resist, and anyway, they’re warm and rough. It’s embarrassing to admit it, but he _does _feel a little calmer with the patterns pressing into him. How long has it been, since someone else was in this lonely house? How long since someone touched him so carelessly and effortlessly?

_It’s effortless because he could suplex me without breaking a sweat, _he reminds himself, feeling irritated. _He has no reason to be afraid of _me.

Except—except maybe he _does,_ maybe he is. Whoever Megatron is, he doesn’t think the way _people _do, the way Ratchet does. The fact that he could easily put Ratchet out doesn’t even seem to register to him; it isn’t part of whatever equations he’s running in that big rugged head of his. And he said… he said that he _wasn’t _frightened, and he keeps strutting and flaunting, and… there’s nothing about him that makes sense.

“Six to eight weeks,” Ratchet says, “since we got it in a cast properly. And that’s only if you agree to stop walking on it, you’re exacerbating the damage.”

“I’ve been crawling to avoid that very problem,” Megatron says, and then, awkwardly, “in a remarkably dignified way, given my predicament.”

Ratchet raises an eyebrow. 

“Six to eight weeks,” Megatron mumbles, and releases Ratchet’s hands. “How many days is that?”

“Month and a half, two months, I guess,” Ratchet says.

“Days,” Megatron repeats, “please.”

“Uh—by seven—forty-two to fifty-six,” Ratchet says, squinting. “I don’t have guests over to my house, and my place isn’t on the way to anywhere else, I guess it’s… I guess it’s _possible. _I could—you could hide out here. So long as no one comes to search my house.” He buries his face in his hands.

“Will we need to prepare for random searches?” Megatron straightens in his chair. “Your palace is labyrinthine, but with study I could learn how to maneuver about it and avoid detection.”

“We shouldn’t _have _to worry about it,” Ratchet says, “as long as we don’t give the police anything to investigate. They’d need a warrant.” He scratches his hairline thoughtfully with his ring finger. “They’re going to want to talk to me, though. I don’t know how convincingly I can lie to them.”

“You lied to the other doctor,” Megatron says helpfully, “I heard you through the elevator door. You told him I was still in the room when you left—just tell the police the same thing.”

“That might work on _Prowl,_ I guess,” Ratchet says dubiously, “but Optimus is going to have some more in-depth questions, especially given what he knows about the case. And he’s not small-time. He knows how to read someone, how to—get information, confessions, out of people. He used to work in New York, you know.”

“Who’s Optimus?”

“The chief of police,” he says, “and—my friend. He was the one driving when we hit you.”

Megatron’s thick brows furrow. “Tall man?” He asks. “Black? Blue jacket?”

“You remember him?”

“He was extremely handsome,” Megatron says, “I assumed you were lovers.”

Ratchet sighs and slumps back in his chair. “Yeah, you and everyone else in town,” he mutters, “you know, just because I’m gay doesn’t mean I fall in love with every man who walks in front of me. Maybe when I was twenty, being handsome would’ve been enough for me, but I’ve outgrown that.”

Megatron blinks at him.

“Anyway, he’s straight,” Ratchet adds, feeling slightly uncomfortable, “and anyway, I’m—you know, I’m busted. If anyone was going to flip him, which isn’t a thing, by the way, it certainly wouldn’t be me.”

Megatron blinks at him.

“And _anyway,_ we have more pressing problems than what people say behind my back,” Ratchet says miserably, crossing his arms over his chest. “I can’t _lie _to _Optimus, _he’s my—my friend. My _best _friend. He’s the only person I’m,” he falters, “that I’m _me _with anymore. Honest with. I want—“ _I want him to know all of me,_ he thinks, and cannot spit out. It is embarrassing, first, and it is vulnerable second, and it is something else that he cannot define, a recalcitrance specific to the way Megatron stares at him.

“Ratchet,” Megatron says, and blinks seriously, “prison.”

Ratchet stares back at him, mouth tight and twisted. Then he sighs. “Fine, I’ll lie to Optimus,” he mutters. “But I’m _not _going to like it.”

“Never said you had to,” Megatron says, brightening. “As long as you don’t go to prison, you can be as miserable as you like.”

Optimus has had—objectively—a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day. He’s trying to find some levity, and he’s coming up short.

A significant portion of his terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad day is coming from his head, which feels like Jezebel’s fate twice over. He feels hungover, except he hasn’t touched alcohol since before his wife got sick back in ’15, and he’s always made a point to stay hydrated. Sleep deprivation, Ratchet would call it—four miserable hours of uneasy sleep before waking up like clockwork at 10:43 AM, unable to return to the land of the dead.

Personally, he has a slightly less highbrow theory, which is that Prowl has had too much coffee and has taken to yelling everything. It’s possible that the two can coexist, and even more possible that their habit of feedbacking into each other is literally setting his brain on fire inside his skull. Hard to tell yet—he won’t know for certain until the smoke starts pouring out of his ears.

The other problem is that they have a case. Midian Hill is not _supposed _to have _cases._ Optimus’ old chief assured him, when he informed him about the job and the move and the absolute absence of opportunity, that nothing happens in Midian Hill, that nothing _will_ happen in Midian Hill because nothing has _ever _happened in Midian Hill. That’s why he took the job in the first place. Being the chief out _here _was just supposed to be something to keep him active in his retirement.

“You checked with the hospital?” He says, as Prowl shuffles papers on his desk for him and without his permission. Prowl sighs like a teenage girl in an eighties film, about to tell Optimus that he’s being _totally _un-rad.

“Yes, of _course _we checked with the hospital,” he says, louder than he needs to, “they were reluctant to help, as usual. Didn’t want us even _finding _this guy, if you ask me.”

“Uh-huh,” Optimus says. “Who did you talk to?”

“The head doctor on staff at the time,” Prowl says, checking his notes. “Uh, First Aid.”

“Right,” Optimus says, scribbling himself a little note that says _‘go apologize to First Aid’. _“Ratchet had gone home by then?”

“Yes,” Prowl says, shooting Optimus a look that he probably thinks is subtle, “but—and I was getting to this—First Aid says he was the last one to see the patient before going home. _And, _after a little preliminary research, I’ve found that he clocked out of the garage at almost the exact same time that the code was called.”

“Huh,” Optimus says. “And you haven’t made contact with him yet?”

Prowl clears his throat. “Chromedome suggested that you talk to him,” he says awkwardly, “since the two of you have knowledge of the crash as well as the missing patient. Besides, he hasn’t answered his phone.”

“That doesn’t really surprise me,” Optimus says, “he went back to work and stayed there until—what, 0600? He’s probably going to get in some extra sleep. We might not be able to get a statement from him for a few hours yet.”

“Hruh,” Prowl mutters, with the indignant frustration of someone unused to waiting, “and what do you suggest we do in the meantime?”

“Follow the other lead,” Optimus says, “your shady couple last night. I wanna know who those guys are and what they’ve been up to. More importantly, I want to know who our runner is, and why they’re looking for him. You got one of their names, right?”

“Adam Miser.” He wrinkles his nose. “Probably false. He seemed shifty.”

Optimus shrugs. “I want you to do a deep dive on it anyway,” he says. “See if there’s anyone in the area with records on that name. Check staff in the county jail, see if there’s anything. Police reports—call the departments in the surrounding area, see if it’s a known name or alias.”

Prowl’s face does something Optimus didn’t realize it physically could—it brightens, perceptibly, around the eyes. “I’ll postpone lunch,” he says, “anything else I can do, to follow up?”

“Stay on standby,” Optimus says. “I’m going to go do some slightly less glamorous footwork. Walk the beat, see if there’s any testimonies we might’ve overlooked—don’t starve yourself, Prowl, Elita says the diner’s hired on a delivery girl for the afternoons. If I’m not back by the end of your shift, type up a report, as detailed as you can, and leave it on my desk. Don’t put yourself on overtime.”

“I can stay on for longer,” Prowl says, lifting his chin up like he’s already imagining himself as a sculpture in the town square, “personal time should be put away for the safety of Midian Hill. I can—“

“Prowl,” Optimus interrupts, standing and shrugging his jacket on over his shoulders, “cases aren’t sprints, they’re marathons. Right now, we have no reason to believe that whatever’s happening is going to put anyone in severe or immediate danger. We do this slow and we do it right. No shortcuts.” He clears his throat. “I need you to stay sharp,” he says, in his _this is important, we’re all counting on you _voice, “Chromedome’s too young and too inexperienced, and I can’t count on him yet for this kind of investigatory work. I need you to rest well and eat well, so you can come in here and set a good example for him. He looks up to you.”

Prowl flusters a little, like a bird disordering its feathers—then he closes his eyes and nods seriously. “I understand,” he says, “though I’m not sure—well. Good luck on your investigation. I’ll get to mine.”

Optimus listens to Johnny Cash on the radio on his drive to the hospital, makes polite conversation with the receptionist, and within ten minutes is being ushered into a back hallway overcrowded with nurses finger-plucking into standing computers. He raises a polite hand as he sees First Aid popping out of a room at the far end of the hallway, and heads towards him.

“Doctor, good to see you,” he says, and watches the little man’s eyes blow wide as he cranes his neck back to look up at him.

“Chief Prime, hey,” First Aid sounds, holding two hands up, “good to, uh, you too—you’re not actually here to beat me up, are you?”

Optimus blinks. “What?”

“It was a joke!” he says hurriedly. “It’s like, ha ha, a joke we have? I know you’re not really from Canada—“

“Uh,” Optimus says, as he tries and fails to follow the plot, “well, I was _born _in Detroit, it’s only a—half-hour drive—what are we talking about?”

“Well, because of the, uh, the strong Canadian boyfriend that Ratchet doesn’t have,” First Aid says, “who’s going to beat me up whenever I, uh, annoy him?”

Optimus doesn’t know if there’s anything in there worth dignifying with a response. After a brief pause, he settles on “I’m not here to rough you up, First Aid. Um, and I’m not—Ratchet’s boyfriend?”

“No, I know!” First Aid says, a little too quickly. “It was a joke, it’s like—“

“No, it’s okay, I know what a joke is,” Optimus says, and holds up an appeasing hand. “It’s nice to talk to you, as always, I _do not _know where I stand in this conversation; but actually, I came to apologize.”

First Aid, who up until this moment has looked borderline frantic, blinks at him. His shoulders settle down slightly. “Oh,” he says, “oh, about Prowl?”

“Yes, I—he told me he talked to you, so I assume he insulted you.”

“Oh, he wasn’t too bad, actually,” First Aid says, crossing his arms over his chest and crinkling his eyes in a smiling sort of way. “He had the kid with him, that kept him mostly in check. I was expecting much worse.”

“Yes, Chromedome brings a tolerable side out in him,” Optimus says. “Look, I don’t mean to badger you, I know you’ve already given your statement, but—“ he breaks off and gives a little sigh. “I need to see the room he was in,” he says. “The patient. It’s just—it’s a box we have to check off, and I’m more of a visual person.”

First Aid sighs. “You’re lucky I’m not such a proud person,” he says, “if Prowl shouted at _Velocity, _you’d be getting a whole speech on ‘knowing our rights’. Let me hand my sheet off, and I’ll walk you up there.”

It’s a short walk, and a small room. Optimus takes a few pictures and makes a note on general dimensions, but there’s nothing much to see.

“There’s two possible exits,” First Aid is saying. “He could’ve gotten out into the hallway, or he could’ve gone through the, uh, the throughway, in there.”

Optimus peers through the tiny broom closet. The door on the other side is totally obscured at a first glance. It’s such a small space, difficult for a big man to navigate. “How would he know this was here?” He asks. First Aid shrugs.

“Maybe he saw Ratchet go out that way,” the doctor says. “Or he might just have been hiding and stumbled through. You get that sometimes with traumatic brain injuries—random fear, paranoia. We have to go on hunts for patients who panic and try to scamper more than you’d think.”

“Huh,” Optimus says. A broken leg and an I.V., and their John Doe is supposed to have crammed himself between two tight shelves in a closet half the size of a gas station bathroom, without knocking anything over, and accidentally found a secret escape route. Just thinking about squeezing through here is igniting a sense of claustrophobia he hasn’t seen hide nor hair of since his team back in New York found a corpse crammed into an industrial air vent back in ’99; and that’s not even _approaching _the skepticism he feels that anyone as proud and broad in the shoulder as Ratchet would try wiggling through to save a minute of walking time. “Are these throughways marked on any maps in the building?” He asks. “Fire escape routes that might have been in the room where the patient might have seen them?”

“Sure, we’re legally required to have all exits marked, and we take safety very seriously. But he was severely concussed, and on a lot of pain medication.” He shrugs again. “Maybe he’s a super-genius, but my professional opinion? If he got out that way, it was probably an accident.”

“And there’s no way he went out the other way?”

“He could’ve,” First Aid admits. “Nothing’s impossible. But we’ve done a clean sweep of the building and a formal lockdown, full code pink—we train the codes weekly, everyone knows exactly what to do—and we haven’t upturned anything. He got out of this building in minutes. The only ways _out _of the building—“ here he turns and taps, guiding Optimus’ eyes to the previously discussed Fire Code Approved escape exit map on the wall by the door— “is to take the elevators or the stairs, on the other side of this floor, past all these hallways. We’re not exactly swarming the place at six in the morning? But Velocity, Ratchet, and I were all up here.”

Optimus studies the map. It’s pretty damning. “What about the stairs on this side of the floor?”

“They go down to our Imaging wing. CT, MRI, the works. Below that, the ER. And that place is _packed _in the middle of the night. We’re talking twenty staff, plus, not to mention getting out past the EMTs who are definitely not ever supposed to be smoking right outside and literally always are,” he says, and then, clearing his throat, “sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Optimus says, smiling. “Tobacco use in this country is an epidemic.” He peers at the map. “I think you’re right. No elevators on this side of the floor means he probably wasn’t going anywhere fast on one leg. And I’ve been up those stairwells, they’re tight.”

“Yeah, it’s a pretty old building,” First Aid admits. “It’s fire and ADA approved, but basically nothing else. I guess Prowl already told you we don’t even have CCTV installed yet?”

“He—mentioned it,” Optimus says evasively, mentally skimming over a thirty-minute block of his life that he’s never going to get back filled entirely with Prowl’s feelings on the subject at about the decimal level of an F-22 during takeoff. “I’m not really fussed about it, if I’m honest with you. Security footage used to be a luxury in this line of business, and I worked most of my cases without it back—back in New York.” _Back home,_ he thinks. He feels very lost out here.

_Why would he run? _Optimus thinks. Motive; he was out of the building in _minutes,_ First Aid says, he must have been booking it. If Ratchet left _before _John Doe, and yet they got out of the building in the same period of time—maybe even earlier than Ratchet, who walks like he’s trying to shake a visible tail in his _leisure _time and makes Optimus jog to keep pace—he was running, running on a broken leg. Why? There’s paranoia, and then there’s pain. That’s fear, _real _fear.

“One last thing,” he says, as First Aid makes for the door, “did you see—maybe not. Were there possibly two gentlemen who came in here last night, looking for the patient?”

First Aid turns, one hand on the side of the doorway, his face absolutely frozen. “Wait,” he says, “wait, yeah. I forgot about them.” His brow furrows. “Are they important?”

“If they came here?” Optimus says. “Yeah. Yes, I think they are.”

Maybe going fast is a doctors-dealing-with-hospital-emergencies thing, because Optimus is almost sprinting to keep up with First Aid as he bolts down the stairs. “Obviously, we can’t show you any of the paperwork they filled out,” he’s shouting over his shoulder, “that’s highly confidential, you’re gonna need a warrant if you want to look at any of that. But we’ve got a sign-in sheet at the front desk, they’ll have written their names down, and our receptionist would’ve seen them. Blades!” He waves down the young man sitting and dozing slightly at the front desk. “Blades, who was on shift this morning?”

Blades informs First Aid that Cyclonus called him in to finish her shift, and he kind of needed the hours, so like, he came by before getting on the road with the other paramedics, and, uh, what’s up? He produces the guest book with prompting and checks in the computer system to see if anything was filed just before the time of the disappearance.

“Did you see them at all?” Optimus asks him, as First Aid flips through the book to the right time. The kid shrugs—he’s got the deep, exhausted lines of an essentially worthless witness painting his under-eyes blue. Optimus’ll spit if he’s got any worthwhile details.

“Mmh, no, they were gone by the time I got in,” he says, scratching behind his ear. “Cyclonus seemed a little freaked out, though. I dunno if it was because of them or because, uh, I mean, she had to leave work early, so I guess it could’ve been something with her dad too? He’s not doing too well these days.”

“I see,” Optimus says, instead of _sighing _and _rolling his eyes _like certain members of his team might, if given a similarly nothing-account. “Thank you, Blades. We’re going to follow up with her, get a full statement—“

Oh, shit, she’s a woman.

“Oh, shit,” he mutters, “I can’t get a statement from her. She’s a woman.”

First Aid, pausing in his rapid page-flipping, glares up at him over his glasses. “Yes, we do _hire _those, sometimes,” he says.

“That’s not—“ Optimus holds up a hand, and then, feeling a little naked, holds up the other one, if only to dissuade Blades from glaring at him as well. “The problem isn’t _her, _it’s our department,” he explains quickly, because First Aid is looking like he’s not going to give him the guest sheet right now, “it’s tiny, and ineffective. And it’s all men. Federal law states that if we’re going to take a statement from a woman, we need a female officer present.” 

“And you don’t _have _one,” First Aid says, looking less angry and more savvy by the second, “oh, that _sucks.”_

“I’ll call some of the surrounding departments, find someone who can come in on official business,” he says, rubbing his forehead. “You got those names for me?”

Wordlessly, the doctor gives him a page out of the binder, and Optimus gives him a platitude and a handshake to hide his own agitation. Once he’s through the sliding doors, sprinting towards his car, he lets his demeanor change.

“Deputy Prowl!” He yells into his radio. “Prowl, confirm! Prowl—A-T-O-M-I-Z-E-R. Atomizer! _Atomizer!”_

_“That’s a copy, Prime,” _Prowl’s voice snakes back, _“now _there’s _a real name!”_

“It’s late,” Ratchet admits, “and I’m—I think you’re getting tired.”

They’re in the bathroom, as Ratchet re-bandages Megatron’s arm with no small amount of grumbling. His nice flannel sheet is going to have to be thrown out, now that his house guest has bled through it, but he’s got more flannel sheets, and he can always just buy a new one. He hardly wears them through—he’s only home once a week, and he mostly doesn’t use flannel. Runs a little too hot for it except when the frozen fog sweeps through in the winter. There’s more damage on the wound now than there _would _have been if _someone _had just waited for a _professional _to remove the I.V., but since that’s neither here nor there, Ratchet’s made his bed with insisting on gauze and ace bandages. Megatron is staring oddly at his hands.

“I can stay up,” he says, almost gently. His gaze seems distant, almost faraway. “You aren’t tired yet, are you?”

Ratchet sighs, attaches the bandages to themselves. “There,” he says, “don’t bend your elbow unnecessarily or put pressure on that for a few hours. It’ll be uncomfortable, and it might reopen the wound when it’s trying to heal.”

“Ratchet,” Megatron says, and reaches out to place a hand on his jawline, “are you tired?”

Ratchet freezes.

His immediate instinct is to jerk back, throw Megatron off, and stamp his foot a little to show he means business. He does _not _like being touched, particularly by people he doesn’t know, and the sheer size of the hand on his face feels like a barely-concealed threat.

“I’m alright,” he says instead, and reaches up to gently take Megatron by the wrist and pull his hand away. He meets no resistance, which relieves him slightly. When he looks up, Megatron is staring up at him. He looks confused. He does _not, _Ratchet notes with some relief, look angry.

_Some kind of cultural gap, _he thinks. It checks out as well as any other explanation he could come up with. His skin is warm where it was touched.

“I’ll wait up with you,” Megatron says, “if you’re not going to sleep.”

“That’s really not necessary,” Ratchet says, feeling awkward. “I’m going to get you set up in the guest room, it should be pretty quiet and, um, I think keeping you upstairs is our best play. You’ll be less visible up there—“

“Alone?” Megatron interrupts. “No.”

“There’s not really a way around that,” he says, “but I promise you won’t be bored, um, there’s plenty of books upstairs and I’ll bring you up whatever you want…” he trails off and chews his tongue thoughtfully. Food’s going to be a problem. There’s almost nothing left in the house, and he hasn’t had the day to refill. And Megatron can’t get up and down the stairs by himself.

“Maybe I’ll take a few days off,” he mutters, rubbing his temples, “I’m going to have to call First Aid… I mean, he’d be _thrilled,_ but…”

“Ratchet, I can’t sleep alone,” Megatron says, and gives him a tap on the arm that makes him jump. When he looks up, that panicked look is back—not so much a fear of retaliation as of abandonment, this time. Automatically, Ratchet raises his hands again.

“It’s okay,” he says, “I’m on your team, remember? I’m not going behind your back. But you need to rest, and I… don’t. I’m going to cover for you.”

Megatron frowns. “I trust you,” he says.

“Oh.” Ratchet frowns back. “Then—“

“I _can’t _sleep by myself,” he repeats, “I never have. I can’t even sleep on my feet, like Four can—but I take the side,” he adds, as though this is a selling point and not incomprehensible gibberish, “very defensive, very warm.”

Ratchet squints. “Sorry, we’re talking about sleeping, right? Like, in a bed?”

“I _never _take middle mattress,” Megatron says, with an air of barely restrained pride, “and I don’t need the wall, either. I’m _extremely _versatile.”

“Seriously, _what_ are we talking about?”

“Sacrifice,” Megatron says, eyes steely, and Ratchet can’t help it—he coughs, and laughter comes up.

“I’m sorry—“ he manages, covering his mouth with his hand, “I’m not—I don’t mean to—“

When he looks up, Megatron is staring at him. He’s also grinning. “Don’t apologize for laughing,” he says, “it was a joke. That was ‘being funny’, you’re supposed to laugh.”

“Wait, you tell _jokes?”_

“I’m the funny one,” he says, nodding somberly. “You like jokes?”

“I don’t go to a lot of comedy clubs, if that’s what you’re asking,” Ratchet says.

Megatron frowns at him, and Ratchet is about to double down on explaining what a ‘comedy club’ is when the ring of his landline pierces the air between them, and he startles so badly he slams his elbow against the sink.

“It’s okay,” Megatron says quickly, “it’s just a phone.”

“I know it’s a phone,” Ratchet snaps, his heartbeat throbbing in his ears, “it’s _my _phone, I have to—answer it—“

It’s the police, certainly, unless it’s the hospital—and which one’s worse? Ratchet scrambles up and half-stumbles into the kitchen, barely remembering to shoot a “stay there, I’ll be back” at Megatron over his shoulder. It _is _past the time he normally goes in to work, almost three in the morning. Maybe First Aid is wondering why he’s so late?

Well, First Aid is _his _employee, not the other way around. He can’t be bossed around like this by some upstart with too many siblings for his own good! Ratchet’s the reason he has his _job,_ after all. He doesn’t _need _to give an explanation for why he’s not at work! He’s salaried!

Not a day late in twenty years, not a Christmas missed, and he’s getting a _phone call _for being, what, _fifteen minutes _late to a shift? Sure, he didn’t intend on coming in _anyway, _sure, he should’ve made a courtesy call, but honestly, he’s ready to get steamed. He _is _steamed. There’s steam coming out of his ears.

“It’s three in the morning, kid,” he says, snatching up the phone, “I didn’t get out until six, so I’m taking an _extension. _Mark it down as a sick day if you really have to!”

“Uh,” says Optimus’ warm voice, and Ratchet freezes up like a pond in winter, “actually, I heard it was a vacation. Was I misinformed?”

“Oh, um, I didn’t,” Ratchet starts, stumbling his way through every excuse his brain can come up with and finding a severe dearth of believable ones, “I’m—sorry! I’m sorry, I don’t mean to yell, I thought you were First Aid, I…”

Optimus’ laughter sails over the connection, all warm and easy like he’s settling into bed, and for all Ratchet’s embarrassment and frustration and the _insanity _that the past twenty-four hours has been, he feels the tense muscles all over start to relax. “I was _hoping _it was something like that, and you weren’t just _very _angry at me over scheduling,” he says, “don’t you have caller I.D.?”

“This is a _landline,_ I haven’t done a damn thing to update it since 1998,” Ratchet replies, leaning easily against the counter, and Optimus laughs again. He twirls a giddy finger in the cord.

Settling into the booth. At the diner. That’s what he meant to think, earlier—about Optimus’ voice. Obviously, he doesn’t know what he sounds like settling into—

“I figured as much, you goddamn luddite,” Optimus is saying, “I bet there’s a cord on it and everything.”

“There is _not,”_ Ratchet replies, untangling his finger quickly. “Anyway, that’s not—why are you calling? I mean, you can call me whenever you _want,” _he amends, “but I figured you’d be in—you’d be asleep by now. I didn’t even know you had my house number.”

“It’s on record,” Optimus says, cringing audibly, “I, uh, I had to pull it from the station. Sorry, I know it’s a little uncouth, um—I just got worried when you didn’t answer your cell.”

“My—“ Ratchet freezes, then presses his fingers into the rut under his eyes. His cell phone—it’s probably sitting, dead, at the bottom of his work bag. He’s barely charged it in days. “Shhhit, it must have died last night—I rolled in at six, six-thirty, hit the, uh,” _floor,_ “couch like a ton of bricks.”

“I thought that was it,” Optimus says, “I just wanted to make sure. You know me—you don’t get anywhere in this business if you’re not suspicious of everything.”

“Maybe in New York, but this is Midian Hill. Nothing happens out here.”

“Well,” Optimus says, and doesn’t elaborate further. Ratchet, who has been following along at home, is starting to put some details together—and even the warm, soothing bass of Optimus’ voice can’t dispel the pit forming in his stomach.

“You said you talked to First Aid,” he says, slowly. “Sorry my phone was dead, um, but why did you call me?”

“Oh, well,” Optimus says again, “I was—that was at midnight, obviously, I was just getting off my shift and I figured, if you weren’t working—because First Aid said you weren’t?—that you might want to get coffee. Just the usual thing, nothing, uh, unusual about it.”

“Oh,” Ratchet says. He doesn’t elaborate further, either. He waits.

“But I did—I don’t want to talk about this right _now,_ obviously, because I’m about to get some sleep,” Optimus adds, after a moment, “I did go to the hospital and talk to your staff. There’s a missing patient who disappeared while you were clocking out, and I’m going to need a statement from you, probably tomorrow.”

Ratchet stares at the empty bowl of chili still on his kitchen counter, waiting to be washed out and replaced in the cabinet. He could come clean, right now. It would be pretty easy to twist the truth around a little, pretend he’d helped Megatron escape because he was afraid for his life—Optimus would take his side, almost certainly, and the whole matter would be taken off his shoulders. Megatron would—would be arrested, probably, but jail’s as safe a place as any for someone on the run from criminals. It’s not like he’d be condemning him to _death _or anything. Maybe a lawyer could even figure out what’s going on with him, get him somewhere safe… 

Or maybe they couldn’t. Maybe Megatron’s exactly what he’s said he is, over and over and over again. And Ratchet’s just okay with signing his death warrant because it would keep his own hands clean.

“I can’t believe this,” he says, “I’m going to _kill _First Aid.”

“Oh—really?”

“I mean I’m not _really _going to do a _crime,” _Ratchet grouses, “I bet he waited to call that code until I was out of the building to make sure I,” he raises one hand to make exaggerated quotation marks, fully aware that Optimus can’t see them, “_take time off, _whoever _that _helps. And now I’m a suspect! Am I a suspect?”

“You’re not a _suspect,”_ Optimus says, laughing, “we don’t _have _any suspects yet, we don’t even have a motive. The whole thing’s pretty complicated so far—there’s a bunch of moving parts, and I can’t figure out how they connect yet. Kind of an interesting case, actually, except I was sort of hoping I wouldn’t have any interesting cases out here?”

“Maybe you’re cursed,” Ratchet says helpfully, “we never had any trouble in this town until you showed up five days from retirement.”

“Don’t say that,” Optimus says, “I’m being bullied. You’re bullying me.”

“I thought Prowl was bullying you.”

“Prowl’s been alright, actually,” Optimus muses. “I gave him some real casework and he settled right down. I basically had to shoo him out of the department three hours after his shift ended. Now it’s just Chromedome giving me trouble—doesn’t want to do some of the legwork I’ve assigned.”

“He’s been on vacation the whole time he’s had this job, what do you expect?”

Ratchet’s about to start spinning poetic about asking for work from someone who’s never been asked to give it before, and how it’s kind of like raising children, if you really get right down to it, when there’s a hobbling thumping noise, and Megatron (standing on one leg) pokes his head out of the bathroom. He squints at Ratchet, holds one hand up to the side of his head like it’s a phone, and mouths something at him that Ratchet can’t interpret.

_I’m on the phone,_ Ratchet mouths back. He taps the phone demonstratively.

Megatron stares at him, then taps his chest twice and points up. _Upstairs,_ he mouths back.

_Okay, okay, one second, _Ratchet motions, and then, into the phone, “uh, look, I’m going to let you go. It’s late, you’re probably tired, um—I can’t come by the station tomorrow, I’m dealing with this, uh, family thing.”

“Family thing?”

“Yeah, it’s—it’s not all that interesting, it’s just—“

“No, yeah, I get it, you don’t have to tell me if it’s personal,” Optimus says quickly. “The day after tomorrow works fine, um—yeah, I’ll schedule something, just text me a time that works when you can. After you charge your phone.”

“Right,” Ratchet says. “Great. I’ll… do that, yeah.”

“Okay, great, um.” There’s a pause. “I hope everything works out.”

Ratchet looks up at Megatron, standing on one foot like a flamingo and staring intently at the front door. “Yeah,” he says, “me too.”

He waits to hear the dial tone before he hangs up.


	3. Exodus 4:28

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! It's here at last! Oh boy. Oh boy is it here at last.
> 
> In retrospect it's super cute that I thought I'd be hauling one of these chapters out every two months! In my defense, I had unexpected surgery on my face this month, and also, this chapter is 1.5x the length of the last two, and that's after some relatively extensive cuts to my outline.
> 
> I also want to say, since I don't think I said it in my author's notes last chapter or any of my responses on your amazing comments, that I have been completely blown away by the response to this fic. When I started writing it, I really thought no one (or very few people) would be interested in a humanformers Crime Mystery Fic TM, and I certainly didn't think people would be more than like... gently tantalized. The fact that so many of you are interested and _want_ to figure out what's going on is so flattering and so humbling (and also panics me because I'm 90% sure I'm going to drop a plot thread by mistake or use the wrong name or pronoun somewhere by mistake and send everyone spinning, but I refuse to focus on that)! I treasure every single one of those comments, long or short, and I'm so grateful to have your attention. I just hope I deliver--and also that the extra length of this chapter tides everyone over, because I have _no_ clue when the next one's coming, guys. I'm as confused as you are.
> 
> WARNING: the following chapter includes discussions of animal abuse, discussions / depictions of sexual trauma and sexual assault, homophobia, and the unfortunately male gaze.

Somewhere else—in Washington D.C., to be precise, in an overcrowded office decorated with small animal figurines, model airplanes, and countless framed commendations—one Federal Bureau of Investigations agent turns to his workplace partner with a thick stack of paper in his hand. Sounds like the beginning of a shitty shaggy dog joke.

“I’ve got something,” Starscream says, his smile half-sneer as he waves the paper in the air. “Ask me what I’ve got, Soundwave.”

Soundwave looks up from his keyboard. He does not ask Starscream ‘what he’s got’. 

“I’ve got a lead,” Starscream says, raising one eyebrow. “Ask me what I’ve got a lead on.”

Soundwave blinks, languidly, at his unfortunate choice in a work partner. There’s only one thing Starscream could have been _looking _for a lead on, and they both know it.

It isn’t that Starscream doesn’t _do _his job. Soundwave would be the first to admit that his partner certainly carries his share of the weight between the two of them. He’s a big talker, with a lot of contacts and the kind of wild social life Soundwave hasn’t dreamed of since he bought his first plant and settled into the long-term goal of fatherhood. But that’s sort of the problem—Starscream never stops _talking. _It’s why Management saddled Soundwave with him in the first place: one of them _has _to talk, to fill the space Soundwave leaves where he only ever shuts up.

“Come on, this is your area of interest,” Starscream prods after a moment, and slaps the paper down hard on Soundwave’s desk, knocking over his little wooden Maneki-neko. Soundwave shoots him a dirty look and straightens it back up. “Greyhound pups,” he continues on, not a bit harried by the glare. “Racing animals that couldn’t cut it in the big circuit. Prize animals, we’re talking three-k a pelt, minimum. For the mutts!”

Soundwave flips passively through the sheets of paper, quietly relieved there aren’t any photos of starving dogs in cages. Breeders make his blood boil.

“My _point _being,” Starscream says after an awkward moment of silence, “this guy slipped up, big time. Sold to one of my ‘buyers’. On-site purchases only—to inspect the quality of the teeth, or whatever people inspect with dogs. You know where the kennel’s located? Go on, guess."

Soundwave glances up at him, and leisurely takes a sip of his lukewarm double-double coffee. Starscream scowls at him.

“Don’t know why I fuckin’ bother,” he mutters, “Kepler! Kepler is where! Or just outside of Kepler, you know, somewhere out there, it’s all fucking mountains anyway. By the way, you want a prize racing greyhound? I’ve got no idea what to do with the damn thing, I’m more of a cat person. This is our way in! I bet she’s sold to our mark.” He raises an eyebrow. “Twenty bucks says she starts ratting them out within the day.”

Soundwave frowns. He holds up two fingers.

“You’re on,” Starscream says. “I’m driving.”

_And Moses told Aaron all the words of the LORD who had sent him, and all the signs which he had commanded him._

Remember Chromedome’s whole thing? About not wanting to be treated like a kid who can’t do anything? Yeah, he’s taking it all back. He wants to be treated like a kid who can’t do anything again.

The fifteen minutes he usually spends sharing office space with the chief, making polite conversation and telling him about what he’s going to do after work? That’s gone. It’s been vacated, to make room for a half-hour lecture on exactly how to ‘walk the beat’ and get witness statements.

“Everywhere that’s open at 0100 and everywhere that’s open at 0600,” the chief told him, circling a large area on the city map with his finger, “those are our two important points. I want you to walk the beat—every business, you go in and ask who was working last night at those times. If it’s the person you asked, you ask them about the gentlemen who came in last night.”

“I thought we were just looking for ol’ shoeless Joe,” Chromedome had responded, feeling wrongfooted.

“All of them,” the chief said, “they’re all involved in something, and I want to know what.”

He’d talked some more about something, proper procedure, et cetera et cetera, and then he’d just rolled out, like Chromedome is actually gonna be able to handle any of this. 

He takes the car up to the diner to ask Elita if she’s seen anything, but de nada—is it de nada? Maybe it’s just nada, he feels like de nada is something different—so he heads back to the station and settles in to wait until six in the freakin’ A.M., which is the way most _normal _people refer to ‘0600’. He steals a lemon drop from Prowl’s desk and, feeling slightly exposed by not doing anything when the chief specifically asked him to do stuff (even if he can’t _do _that stuff yet), starts paging through the case file. Optimus told him he could—should—read it if he gets a second, so he’s going to. It’s something, anyway. Something other than waiting for five hours.

He makes a note of the location of the car crash the other night, puts a little pin in it on the city map—he’s more of a visual guy, needs the whole picture to get things right—and frowns. The pin’s barely on the map, he guesses ‘cause most of the mountain is unincorporated territory or whatever? But wherever Shoeless Joe (which is what he’s decided to call their John Doe, because John Doe is like, a super boring name) came from must be outside of city limits.

His computer isn’t turning on, so he goes to Prowl’s, fiddles with it for a little while, and eventually convinces Google Maps to pull up. He types in his ex-boyfriend’s address first to see if he’s still got that weird scarecrow in his backyard, and then—feeling guilty—hurriedly types in the address of the diner up the hill. Repositions the map a little. Starts zooming out.

And then he stops.

“What the hell?” He taps the monitor a few times. “What the hell is that?”

Prowl rolls in fifteen minutes early, dark circles under his eyes and a cardboard carrier stuffed with coffee cups in one hand, in just enough time to see Chromedome haphazardly taping a new section onto the side of the city map. He raises an eyebrow.

“I brought coffee,” he says, setting the carrier down on the table. Normally, Chromedome rockets towards him, asking if he asked for sugar-no-cream and burning the inside of his mouth badly the second he walks through the door. “What’re you doing up there?”

“Prowl,” Chromedome says, turning, sounding a little breathless, “I’ve got—I mean, I don’t got, I haven’t, uh, I haven’t Got Something, capital G capital S, you know? Um, it’s probably nothing, but the chief told me to walk the beat at one and six, and it isn’t going to be six for a while, so I figured, I could check out the area of the crash?”

Prowl stiffens. “On your own?” He says. “At night?”

“Not the actual, like, _real _area of the crash,” Chromedome corrects quickly, “just on the map. But it’s right on the edge of the city, so it wasn’t on our map, um, so I went and got this?” He taps his hand on the printout. Prowl, one eyebrow raised, takes a sip of his coffee and approaches, squinting.

“This is a satellite image,” he says, “where’d you get this?”

“Google.”

“What?”

“The internet,” Chromedome says, “look at this, over here.”

Prowl squints at the tiny square of dark pixels. “What the hell?” He says. “What’s that?”

“I was kind of hoping you knew?” Chromedome says, voice squeaking in a sudden raise of excitement. “It’s a building, for sure, I mean, I think. I mean, it _looks _like a building? But that’s the direction the chief said Shoeless Joe came in from—I mean, sorry, the John Doe who didn’t have any shoes, uh, the guy—like, if it was a straight shot, maybe that guy was there first?”

Prowl looks at it. “Whatever it is, it’s not a prison,” he mumbles. “There’s not a major prison in this neck of the woods anyway—I meant to tell you—still.” He trails off, peering at the dark splotch on the map. He takes another sip of coffee. “Did you call this in?”

“You and the chief are both off duty, I don’t have—I mean, I’m not, like, deputized,” Chromedome says, “plus, I’m not super familiar with the area? I wanted to see if you knew what it was before freaking out and driving out there by myself.” He pauses. “Plus, I get anxious driving those cars,” he admits. “They’re kinda like. Old. They could use a tune-up, you know?”

“I’ll call Whirl about it,” Prowl mutters noncommittally. “Good thing I haven’t taken my coat off—come on, let’s get going. Bring the map with you.”

“Uh,” Chromedome says, but Prowl has disengaged and is moving back towards his desk and grabbing his keys. “Oh! Uh, okay, do we—do we wait for the chief? I mean, do we leave him a note? Tell him where we’re going?”

“He’s not some kind of _parent,_ Chromedome,” Prowl says. “You’re an adult now, and you’re responsible for your own decisions. We don’t _need _his permission.” Saying this, he puffs up suddenly, the way cats do when they have a clever thought about how to knock a glass of water off the table. “I’ve been deputized by the local government to take action in the absence of the chief. If you need permission from someone, take it from me. Now grab your coat, and let’s get in the car.”

“Let me be clear,” Ratchet says, “I appreciate whatever you think you’re offering, but I’m not sleeping in this bed with you.”

Megatron frowns. “I’m not ‘offering’,” he says, “I told you, I need this. I can’t sleep by myself.”

Ratchet feels like he’d have more leverage in this conversation if Megatron wasn’t literally holding him pinned against the mattress with an arm and a leg. He wriggles his shoulder experimentally and feels the grip tighten anxiously on him.

Frankly, he’s not sure how this happened. He was _so careful._ To be fair, he hadn’t really been expecting anything while he was lowering his ward onto the bed in the guest room—he’d been a little more preoccupied with making sure the pillows would be elevating his back alright, and that there was room for his leg to be propped up to alleviate it, and thinking about if he had any painkillers strong enough for a broken limb, et cetera, et cetera. And then he was in bed. Best he can figure, Megatron grabbed him and rolled, which is _no _good for his gimp leg.

“You really shouldn’t do anything that athletic while you’re recovering,” Ratchet says, trying to sound firm despite how thoroughly he’s been bested in the field of combat, “it could exacerbate damage. Let me up, so I can look at it.”

“That’s a trick and we both know it,” Megatron replies, his voice _level _and _reasonable _as though this is an argument they get into all the time, the two of them, a pair of friends closer than anything who have to debate rationally why it’s okay to keep Ratchet prisoner in Strong Man Arm Jail. “You’ll get up, check my leg, and then you’ll leave.”

“Can I at _least _get up to turn off the _light,” _Ratchet grumbles. “I can’t sleep with it on—not that I’m going to sleep at all, mind you, with you clinging all over me—“

“I don’t ‘cling’,” Megatron says, “you should be grateful for my services. I’ll keep you warm.”

“I don’t _want _to be kept warm,” Ratchet says, feeling slightly hysterical to be in this argument at all, “I run warm! Why do you think my air conditioning is at sixty all year round?”

“What’s air conditioning?”

“It’s—it makes the insides of buildings colder.”

“So _that’s _it,” Megatron mutters, “I _knew _it wasn’t made of ice.”

“What?”

“Your mansion,” Megatron says, cryptically. “It’s cold. Very cold, especially for the season.”

“It’s not really a mansion,” Ratchet says, and then, awkwardly, “my grandfather built it, actually.”

“It has stairs,” Megatron says, “it has _two _beds, and so many redundancies, I just kept losing track. You have so many rooms! You only need one!”

“That’d be your concussion talking,” Ratchet says, “it’s going to be hard to focus, and your fine motor control might be less than adequate.” He wriggles, uncomfortable with the heavy arm slung over his shoulder, and is both relieved and surprised when it accommodatingly slides down to hold him around the waist. The touch is warm and heavy. Firm.

Contrary to popular belief, Ratchet isn’t the Pure, Celibate Homosexual that the town has taken to seeing him as for their own comfort. The type of people who live in Midian Hill have a long way to go on that front, and by and large have difficulty conflating A) Ratchet = Town Hero with B) Ratchet = Horny, Occasionally. Other than Elita (and Ironhide, though Ratchet hasn’t seen him at the diner recently and is starting to get a little worried), the citizens have strained themselves enough to see that, though going around Seducing Men From Their Wives is certainly Wrong, perhaps the act of passively _being _homosexual, harmlessly and, indeed, sexlessly, might not be a _crime,_ after all, if it can’t be _helped. _Which is why, except to said closest childhood friends mentioned above, Ratchet has taken great pains to be seen as such.

Pointedly, he is not.

Ratchet had been a delinquent child and a borderline criminal teenager—his agonizing high school years had been brightened only by punctuations at a gay bar, two towns over and so deep underground it might as well have been a kettlebottom, and his stepfather’s stolen car, which he’d always been good at getting fucked in the backseat of. He’d never kept boyfriends; he hadn’t seen any point, when older lovers would buy him cigarettes and alcohol and marijuana and help him dirty up property that wasn’t his without moaning about how _concerned _they were for his poor, childish psyche. He’d known he’d be beaten at home for it, but the reward of being touched—of being _wanted—_had always outweighed the risks.

And that’s not even starting on medical school—pre-med had been crammed with liberal types, eager to experiment with someone who knew what to _do _now that they were far from their parent’s discerning eyes for the first time. In all honesty, Ratchet was sort of amazed he’d managed to graduate at _all, _with the amount of study time he’d sacrificed to smoking whatever his roommate had to sell to him and educating his underclassmen. In adulthood, this appetite had become more practical, but no less voracious. Even the move from Chicago, which had been fraught at the best of times, hadn’t slowed him down any—just forced him to spend more money on gas, casting a wider net.

In the past few months, Ratchet _has _been in a bit of a dry spell, and he’s not stupid enough to pretend it’s got _nothing _to do with his weekly dinners in good company at Elita’s place. Talking with Optimus fills up what precious little free time he has, and certainly uses up his extremely limited store of social energy, which he needs basically all of to get any these days. He’s not a fit, handsome twenty-something with boundless energy and 20/20 vision anymore—no one is _fighting _to get a piece of him except aging queens who want to lie back and order somebody around. No thank you. His back won’t take that kind of abuse.

The agonizingly long and short of it is that Ratchet is perfectly used to being in bed with men he only barely knows the name of. Actually _sleeping _with them? That’s an entirely separate—and altogether too vulnerable—place to be in.

Megatron probably isn’t worried about this, Ratchet thinks sullenly, as he tries to figure out where he can put his arm that won’t invite further contact from his bedmate. If he tries to rest it on his own side, where Megatron’s arm is, it’ll seem like he’s leaning in—he’ll make contact for sure, and then what’s he supposed to do about that? But if he puts it up by his pillow, he’ll be stretching himself out, exposing more of his body, and how’s he supposed to know if that’s going to encourage exploration? He does _not _need to get felt up when he’s just trying to wait Megatron out and then wriggle out from his grasp (somehow), turn the lights out, and get to his own bed—

“What’s ‘Pharma’?” Megatron asks, and Ratchet freezes in place. “You said it when I tried to wake you up.”

Ratchet’s quiet for a second, as he tries to find wind to get back into his lungs. His chest feels tight all over. “It’s nothing,” he says after a pause, “he’s no one. I don’t want to talk about this.”

There’s a gentle rustling from behind him—the arm, slung over his stomach, is retracted in a quick stroke of contact. Ratchet only has time to process that it’s gone, and that, realistically, he could probably bolt except that he’s actually kind of comfortable? Then, the arm is back, the hand aloft in front of Ratchet’s face. Between two fingers, there is a six-sided die.

“How about this,” Megatron says, in a strangely familiar cadence, “I will give you this, if you will tell me one thing about Pharma.”

Ratchet stares at the die. He twists around to stare over his shoulder at Megatron. “Is that mine?” He asks. “That’s mine. Did you steal that?”

“I found it,” Megatron says. “Possession is nine tenths of the law.”

Ratchet stares at him. “What?” He says. “Wait, what did you just say?”

“I said, I found it.”

“No, I mean—where did you hear that?” Ratchet holds his hands up. “That possession is nine tenths of the law?”

Megatron shrugs. “People say it,” he says, cryptically. “Do you want this object? It has value.”

“No, I don’t want—that object,” Ratchet says, and sighs. “Look—how about this. I tell you something about Pharma, and you… tell me something about Terminus.”

Megatron stares at him. He has very dark eyes, and thick, expressive brows. Up close, Ratchet can see a myriad of little lines, pale pink scratches of scar tissue over his cheeks and jaw, a smattering of discolored splotches where adolescent acne had once been and the dark, scratchy texture of an unshaven jaw. Purple-black scabs on the lips where chapped skin has died. Up close, he looks so extremely human—and with a hint of shame, Ratchet realizes he’s surprised at that. Up until now, Megatron hadn’t really seemed real.

“I don’t think I can,” Megatron says. His eyes flick down, like he’s ashamed to look back. “He was already in so much trouble, even before my flight. If I said anything—if he could be punished for anything I did—“ he breaks off. His fingers clench in the fabric of Ratchet’s scrubs.

“It’s okay,” Ratchet says, without really knowing why. Belatedly, he realizes he’s half-turned around towards Megatron anyway, and rolls the rest of the way, until they’re stomach to stomach. He reaches out and touches his shoulder.

“They’re going to kill him,” he says, matter-of-factly. “They probably already have. And he knew they would, if I left, and he helped me leave anyway.”

“Your—those two men?” Ratchet asks. “The ones from the hospital. Your—your owners?”

“Not them,” he says, “but some of their family. One of their brothers. One of the strong ones.” He looks up, then, brows lowered and casting shadows over his eyes so that they look almost black in the low light. “Not left,” he says. 

“What?"

“I said I left,” he says, “but I didn’t leave. I escaped. It’s different.”

“I know,” Ratchet says, because Megatron is starting to glare at him, “that’s—that’s why I helped you. That’s why I’m _helping _you. I had to escape once, too.”

The glare evaporates. “You were held?”

“Well, it wasn’t—I mean, it’s not—the two situations aren’t comparable,” Ratchet says, hurriedly, “my, uh, my situation was certainly less _dire, _I wasn’t going to die, I probably—probably shouldn’t have put the two in the same sentence, I just—“

“Ratchet.”

“It seemed like a good idea when I was saying it? But now I feel like I’m just invalidating what _you’re _going through right now, and what _you _were able to do—“

“Ratchet,” Megatron says, “I’m glad that your situation was less dire.” He puts a hand on Ratchet’s chest, almost clinically, like he’s trying to hear his lungs with an invisible stethoscope. “And I’m glad you escaped.”

Ratchet sighs. “You wanted to know about Pharma,” he says. “He was the first person who ever loved me properly, and I married him for it.” He peers at Megatron in the dark. “Uh, don’t be offended, do you know… what marriage is?”

Megatron squints back at him. “I know… the word,” he says at last. “Marriage. It’s some kind of partnership.” He brightens. “Like Cunégonde!”

_“What?” _Ratchet’s out of his depth again. This is so appalling. This is beyond the pale. “How have you read Candide?”

“The man on the radio likes it. He talks about it sometimes.”

“You have a radio?”

“After the sun goes down, most days. If we work hard. But that isn’t the point. You were supposed to be telling me about Pharma.”

“Fine. Fine.” Ratchet closes his eyes. He’s warm, and too tired to argue. “We’re going to talk about Candide later.”

“Good,” he says. “My brothers are not academic, and I have some questions.”

“Right, that clocks. So marriage is—it’s a partnership, yeah, it’s, um, usually it’s contractual but mostly it’s interpersonal. It’s romantic. People usually aren’t, um, forced into it these days, or obligated to do it for financial reasons or out of—spite? Why _does _Candide marry her?”

“It’s complicated. And I don’t really understand it either. I was hoping you would.”

“Never was big on Voltaire,” Ratchet muses, scratching his neck where stubble is starting to come in. “I always found his work pretty mean-spirited and grotesquely sexual, um, I haven’t read it since high school—this isn’t what I’m supposed to be talking about. Um.” He sighs, tries to figure out how to phrase—how to _talk _about _any_ of this.

He’s told Elita and Ironhide (and even, in brief tokens, Optimus) about the divorce, but he’s never tried to talk about the marriage itself. Maybe admitting that he loved Pharma, once, will bring back the taste of everything rotting slowly in his mouth.

“We didn’t know anything,” he says fatalistically, “right from the beginning. We _thought _we knew each other, we thought we’d just _get through it _because we were _supposed _to; our social group was small back then, and getting smaller. We weren’t… social people. I guess I thought… I don’t know what I thought.” He rubs his jaw. “I’m not making sense.”

Megatron doesn’t say anything. Vaguely, Ratchet is aware of his hand sliding back along his waist.

“It was so… _high school, _the whole thing,” Ratchet grumbles, shaking his head. “We fought all the time, even from the beginning, but I figured that was fine because it just meant we felt _passionately. _I don’t know. I thought I was invulnerable to, to the _exhaustion _of that because I used to fight with everyone all the time, just, _surviving,_ I thought it was okay to fight with one person and I—suddenly I hated—I hated going home. I—I didn’t ever want to see him there, but if he _wasn’t _I was just, spiraling in this paranoid hell that he was—shit.” He sighs and closes his eyes. “This was all so _long _ago, I never—“

“Ratchet.”

“It took eight years,” he spits out, and there it is, between them, writhing like a thing alive. “It took us eight years to burn _everything._ And then I had—I had no friends, I had no career, I just had him and I fucking _hated _him and I hated our apartment and I hated Chicago, and I—I lost a patient and then I lost my job, and I just.” His hands are shaking. “I left. I went home, I just gave up and went home.”

He remembers standing in a phone booth, back when phone booths were still in the kinds of train stations he could afford, plugging quarters into the machine and slamming numbers he’d forgotten he’d memorized into the keypad. Rain coming down on the glass. The apartment key in one pocket and a wallet with thirty in cash in the other.

“I was afraid he would follow me, and then I was disappointed that he didn’t, how fucked up is _that,” _Ratchet mutters. “I mean, we were—we made each other miserable, but neither of us had anybody else, you know? No other friends, we were so awful to be around. I was completely dependent on him.”

And then there had been too much at home to worry about. It had left him feeling sick and vulnerable, but there had been work to throw himself into. His mother had needed someone to help her. He had returned to find her in the final advances of a sickness he hadn’t known about, which, without a proper hospital in the area, had taken her quickly and without remorse. And then there had been funerals and financial expenditures, and Elita had stepped in and been kind (insomuch as Elita was ever ‘kind’, with her brusk maternal air that made you frightened you were about to be grabbed by the ear and have dirt rubbed viciously off your nose), and he had just wanted to do something. Anything. 

He’d been unable to redecorate the house; though his mother had always had poor taste in interior decoration, he’d only ever gotten as far as removing the peeling wallpaper and whitewashing the plaster before the horrible fear of erasing his own past had set in and paralyzed further activity. Bitter and unkind as she always had been, it had still seemed wrong to strip his mother’s influence out of the only home she’d ever lived in just a year after her death—and then two years—and then he had just found somewhere else to spend his life. He had a pittance, and an M.D., and the town had a hospital that was more ghost building than care center. He’d found a place for himself, and hollowed it out, and started to work.

“Terminus,” Megatron says, and Ratchet is pulled back into the present like lightning, scraps of dead history hanging from him, “is the oldest of us. He has become frail, recently. He doesn’t have long.”

“Frail?”

“His hair is white, and when he drinks water, his hands shake,” Megatron says. “He was a young man when I was first brought to the low house, but time passes and it treats him cruelly.” He pauses, purses his lips. “I wasn’t born there,” he says, “I worked in other places before the low house. I was only brought there when it became apparent that I was powerful, in my ad—adolescence. And that made me harder. Callused.

“Terminus was always kind to me and to the other ungrown boys when one of us arrived. On me, he placed special confidences.” At this, Megatron seems to swell in place ever so slightly. “I am more intellectual than my brothers,” he says, “and more interested in intellectual pursuits. Under his guidance, I learned reading, and became more eloquent in my speech and with my pen, when I could keep one.”

“He taught you to read?”

“Oh, no—he didn’t know how,” Megatron says, waving a hand. “I taught myself. He just stole supplies for me to practice on.” He frowns. “All the high house ever _gave _us was _Religion. _But they had books enough that they never guarded very well. Not a multitude, though. Not like here.”

Ratchet thinks of his house, this little two-bed-one-and-a-half-bath that no realtor could manage to sell, small floor plan, bad location. Crammed with everything he couldn’t manage to throw away, his study packed with redundant textbooks and expired encyclopedias, his basement full of boxes packed with his mother’s dilapidated bodice rippers. Low quality or worthless bindings with nothing inside but words.

“You’re welcome to take whatever you want,” Ratchet says, shrugging. “Most of it’s garbage, though, or outdated information. Don’t take it at face value. But, anything that’s here—“ he drops off, gestures vaguely with a hand.

“It’s sweet that you think you could keep them from me,” Megatron says. “I’ve already read about twelve.”

“What? When?”

“While you were sleeping.”

Ratchet blinks, then shakes his head, smiling. “Keep up at that pace and you’ll run out,” he admonishes. “So, Terminus was—your mentor, sort of. And you said he helped you… escape?”

Megatron’s eyes, which had been growing progressively more animated as he smiled and chatted, go dim all over again. “It was Terminus’ idea in the first place,” he says. “He believes that we should be free, not chained and laboring in the dark. I read to him about lands where all men walk in their own shoes, and he decided that someone—one of us—had to go there, summon resources, and return for the rest of his brothers, no matter how long it took. Impactor wanted to go, but Terminus chose me instead.

“We prepared for so long, not just myself but all of my brothers, those with names and those without. Four studied the movements of the guards at night and slept on his feet by day. I built my calluses up until I had skinshoes to protect me in my flight. Even Impactor agreed to cause a disturbance to distract the high house. And after all that, I failed immediately.” He bends his head in shame, and will not meet Ratchet’s eye. “I was injured on the same night as my departure, my owners know I’m here, and all I can do is wait out my recovery in impotency. Even if I am not recaptured, Terminus will certainly be dead by the time I return.”

Ratchet watches him turn in on himself. He looks young, vulnerable, tired. Without really meaning to, he rubs a thumb over Megatron’s cheekbone, and watches his eyes fall closed under the ministration.

And then, because Ratchet is Ratchet, and no amount of pretty young men has ever changed that, he says, “so you’re just going to give up?”

Megatron’s eyes shoot open. “What?”

“You spend, what, _years _preparing to escape and free your brothers, only to hit _one _roadblock and roll over?” Ratchet holds him by the jaw. “Those men, your owners? They _don’t _know where you are. Because you asked me for help and I helped you. You just need to ask for help with _this.”_

Megatron glares at him. “I wouldn’t ask that of you,” he says, “when I already owe you too much. I have to do this on my own.”

“Quit martyring yourself, you’re giving me a headache,” Ratchet says, rubbing his temples demonstratively. “We’ll talk about this tomorrow, I’m too worn out to argue with you now.”

“But—“

“Go to sleep,” he mutters, and rolls over again. And then, because it _is _hurting his head, “think you can reach the light?”

If you want to get your masters in broadcast journalism in West Virginia, you have to put in real work hours at a real job. Most of the good programs near Marshall University got filled up faster than blinking, eager undergrads and faster-footed grads grabbing unpaid internships at local broadcast stations talking about weather or going on the scene to follow a presidential campaign that wasn’t happening. Sometime in the third month of his third semester, Glitch realized he needed eighty hours in the next five months if he didn’t want to spend another year without a degree, and very belatedly started hunting. There wasn’t much left.

It’s not a bad job, all told—he’s kind of a night-owl anyway, so graveyard shifts don’t really bother him, and the studio’s empty except for a Mr. Coffee, the soundboard, and him from one to seven, when the early-morning shock-jocks roll in to tell bad jokes between songs Glitch wouldn’t be caught dead listening to. Maybe people in the area don’t mind—they certainly don’t call in or whatever. And anyway, he actually gets paid. It’s seven-something an hour, a total pittance as far as an actual salary goes, but he doesn’t mind. He can rig up a long string of Leonard Bernstein compositions and lie down on the carpeted floor for a nap if he wants, or study for finals. His undergraduate degree was in ethnomusicology—all night, he rigs up little strings of public domain stuff from all over the world, and interjects with whatever tidbits he can remember when he’s supposed to.

It’s supposed to float him, nice and easy, into that stupid degree. It’s not supposed to get him interrogated by the police.

There’s two of them; a tall guy with a baby face and a short guy who looks like he started decaying months ago but who only hangs out with people too polite to tell him he’s dead. The tall guy is wearing sunglasses at night and wringing his hands nervously. The dead guy walking is drinking coffee.

“Um, so,” Glitch says awkwardly, wishing he wasn’t wearing a Sex Pistols shirt and joggers, “am I in… trouble? Like, did I play something copyrighted?”

“Did you?” Dead guy says, narrowing his decomposing little eyes.

“You’re not in any trouble,” tall guy says, probably trying to sound soothing. “We’re working on an active case, we just wanted to ask you a few questions.”

“Okay,” Glitch says, “um, but like, am I… in trouble?”

Tall guy breathes in deep, then blows air out slowly through his lips, like he’s trying really hard not to sigh. Dead guy asks Glitch if the Mr. Coffee works, then promptly informs him that ‘Officer Tumbler’ will be taking the lead on this investigation and goes to hang out in the kitchen. That makes Glitch relax a little. Two cops is two cops too many, but one cop who seems as nervous as he is takes a little of the pressure off.

Truth be told, Chromedome is anxious, too. He’s the lowest-ranked officer in the station, he’s only had the job for four months, and he had to wait for his deputy to get in to work before actually following up on a lead. But as they’d gotten out of the car in the gravel park just outside the radio station, staring wide-eyed up at the satellite tower, Prowl had put a hand on his shoulder.

“This is your lead, Chromedome,” he’d said. “You found this. You should be the one to question him.”

“But,” Chromedome had stammered, “I don’t know how to do this yet. I’ve never done this before.”

“You’ve got to start somewhere,” Prowl said. “Stay calm, like you always do, and you’ll do fine.”

So here he is, notepad in hand, uncomfortable aluminum chair under his butt, increasingly antsy college student across from him. There’s not much room in here—there’s a recording station (at least, that’s what he figures from the microphones and stuff), some kind of locked off booth with boards and wires where sound editing probably goes on, a kitchen-breakroom thing, and a bathroom. And that’s basically it. No lobby, no front desk. Chromedome guesses you don’t need that kind of thing—not many people come into a radio station for a routine appointment. It had made coming in kind of awkward, though.

Okay. He can do this. He can ask… questions. Great questions! _Awesome _questions that’ll blow this whole thing _wide _open! He can solve this case on the chief’s day off and be calling his mom about it so she can’t ask him about whether or not his date with Boston-Guy went well (it didn’t)! He’s _got _this.

“What’s your name, son?” He asks, and immediately internally crumples. _Son. _Because he’s fifty fucking years old.

“Um,” the kid says, “Glitch?”

“Okay, Glitch,” he says goodnaturedly, trying to seem soothing, “I’m just going to ask you some questions about what you do here so we can get a better picture of… of where we are. How long have you been working here at the radio station?”

“Um, a couple of months,” Glitch says, “In West Virginia, if you want a degree in, um, Broadcast Journalism, you need to log eighty hours in the field? And this was one of the last jobs that was open. It’s kind of in the middle of nowhere.”

“Right,” Chromedome says, trying not to sound offended, because like, he _knows _it’s the middle of nowhere, but he _lives _here, dammit. “So this station isn’t within any of the nearby cities?”

“It’s unincorporated territory, yeah,” he says. “Um, there’s a lot of stuff out here, mostly forests and just the mountains and stuff, but it’s not part of a national park or anything like some of Appalachia is. It’s just, like, stuff.”

Chromedome nods and jots something down, trying to get his brain to form important questions. He can hear Prowl moving around in the adjacent room, making coffee and pretending not to listen in. There’s way too much at stake here for him to mess around with out-of-the-box stuff. Stay calm. Move from one question to the other.

“So you have the evening shift,” he says, “were you working here on Thursday night?”

“Uh. Yes?”

“Did you see anything unusual?” He flicks his pen awkwardly. If this doesn’t prompt anything, he doesn’t know where to go. “Did you get any late night visitors, maybe? See anything on CCTV?”

“We, um, don’t have CCTV except in the parking lot,” Glitch says, “um, is this a missing persons thing? Maybe?”

Chromedome blinks. “Why do you ask?”

“Um.” Glitch wiggles his hands under his legs like his fingers have gone cold. “So, um, I don’t know if I should have reported anything to the police before, ‘cause I didn’t, but a couple of weeks ago, some of my stuff got stolen out of my car when I was working up here.”

“Stuff?” Chromedome perks up. His pen, starting to droop, startles up too. “What kind of stuff?”

“Just some old school stuff,” Glitch says, “like, some old textbooks and stuff. I was kind of pissed because, like, they cost a lot of money to buy, but, um, they’re older, so it’s not like I needed them anymore? Actually I was going to try and sell them, but I just kept not getting around to it, and they were just sitting in my car, like, in the passenger seat, and then I went out to grab something out of there, um, I don’t remember—I think it was my lighter? And the door was open and they were gone.”

“Can you remember what day that happened?” Chromedome is _itching. _“Or the time?”

“It was a Wednesday, I _think,” _Glitch says, squinting and furrowing his brow. “It was a quarter to three, though, I remember that because three is when I do a talk spot, and I did mine on that. I was like, hey, my stuff got stolen out of my car! And then, and this is kind of why I didn’t report it, um, like an hour later, this guy came back, and he had my stuff with him,” he says. “Like, he gave it back to me?”

“He brought it back?”

“Well, I mean, he didn’t _take _it, I don’t think,” Glitch says, wiggling from one side of his butt to the other, “he told me that, um, his son took it, and he caught him and was bringing it back. Um. And actually he was kind of a dickbag about it? Sorry, um, I don’t mean to curse. But he was being a real, um, I mean, not to _me, _but he said some real nasty stuff about his son. It made me super uncomfortable, but, um, I mean, I did get the stuff _back,_ so like, so I didn’t call in a report or anything. I kind of didn’t even know who I would call and it just seemed like, um, a lot of work to figure it out.”

Chromedome’s brain is clicking along as fast as he can make it go. He looked at that map basically the whole drive up here, while Prowl was driving and not making conversation or letting him choose a radio station, and he gets kind of uncomfortable when Prowl goes all pensive and silent like that. There’s no small houses in the area, nowhere a family could live. It’s all rocky terrain and thick forest. Unless… unless there’s something small enough to hide _under _the tree cover, an underground bunker or a trailer or something built into the land. And if _that’s _the case, there’s no way in hell they’re ever going to find it. It’s too small a needle in too big a haystack.

Unless unless _unless,_ his mind sings, they have a link from one to the other. A witness. An _inhabitant, _maybe someone Shoeless Joe left behind.

“What did this guy look like?” Chromedome asks. “The one who came to talk to you. Do you… remember, at all, if there was anything distinct about him?”

“Yeah, um, he was kind of a bigger guy,” Glitch says, and Chromedome deflates only _slightly _because it probably wasn’t one of their two perps, but he’s still getting a description, so, big win, “he had a beard? Reddish hair, um, he kind of looked like a lot of the guys who used to be miners out here. He was older. Gruff.”

“And what did he tell you about his son?”

“Um,” Glitch says, squirming in his seat, “I don’t—I just want to say I don’t agree with _any _of it?”

“It’s okay,” Chromedome says, placatingly.

“It’s just that it’s like, 2019,” Glitch says, sounding embarrassed and agitated, “like, we don’t have to act like that anymore, but we’ve got this, like, _political _climate that’s making people—“

“Glitch,” Chromedome interrupts, “you seem like a good kid. Whatever it was—“

“It was just, like, _bad _parenting, right,” Glitch bursts out, “like, he wanted me to agree with him about how to—he was just making fun of his son, he was like, ‘oh, sorry, my _dumbass _kid thinks he can go to college,’ and he started talking about how like—sorry—how boys who like reading are all, um, and he said a _different _word but that they’re all gay because they _like reading, _sorry, it just really pissed me off. I just, I mean, one: he was returning _my college textbooks _to me and telling me he was sorry that his idiot son was a fag for wanting to read _my books, _like, I know what you’re saying about me to my face, dude! And then like, more importantly, who still fucking thinks that, you know? That being well-read and being interested in artistic, like, subjects means that you’re gay? And then like, like, on top of _that, _who even _cares _if you’re gay? It’s, like, it’s 2019!”

“It’s rough out here,” Chromedome agrees. He knows a _lot _of people who care a _lot _in his own hometown, not fifteen miles from here. “Was that the last you saw of him?”

Optimus—sorry, the chief—says something about people (that Chromedome never really got until now) all the time. He says, if you let people _talk, _they’ll just go about it circuit—circ—they’ll go in a circle around it. If you need to know why the car tire went out, you cut them off and redirect them—if you need every detail you can get, you wait and see what they throw you. People like to talk. They’re social. And, because _you’re _a cop, Optimus says, they’re nervous you’ll catch them lying.

Glitch is shifting in his seat again, like his loose pants are discomforting him or something. If Chromedome was here as a peer, he’d, like, _definitely _be checking that area out and just kind of, like, _sizing up _what he could see. As a _professional, _though, he’s staring super, super hard at Glitch’s face from behind his shades that he put on nervously in the car and forgot to take off and now it’s too late. “Um,” he says, “um, yes, that’s the—that’s the last I saw of him. Only…”

“Only?” Chromedome prompts.

“There’s nothing _wrong _with—with what I—there’s nothing _wrong _with it,” Glitch says, walking a quick circle around what he means to say, “the thing is, I just—I felt bad? For the guy’s kid! I—like, I started thinking about it, you know? I have all these textbooks from undergrad, and—and I’m doing okay, financially, you know? Like, I’m on scholarship and stuff, and I have this job, and my parents are, um, helping me with my car and my insurance, and, and, and I’m doing okay! And this kid—like, I figured, um.” He blinks mulishly at Chromedome. “I didn’t do anything _wrong,” _he says after a second.

Chromedome glances over into the kitchen, where Prowl has turned on the tap and is noisily tidying dishes because that’s just the sort of thing he _does _when things are messy. “Just between you and me, kid,” he says, looking back at Glitch, “the more you say that you _didn’t _do anything wrong, the more it feels like maybe you did?”

“But I didn’t!”

“Then don’t couch it,” Chromedome says. “You seem like a good kid. You don’t have to justify yourself. Just explain it to me.”

Glitch bites his lip. “They listened to the radio,” he says, “obviously—‘cause the dad must’ve heard me do my spot about how my stuff got stolen on the radio, since he brought it back. Right?”

Chromedome nods.

“So, I knew they, uh, they listened to me,” Glitch says, “and I thought that—like, maybe—and I had all these books? Um, that I didn’t need. And this kid—I mean, not to sound like I’m, uh, a philanthropist or whatever. But like, kids should be allowed to _read, _you know? Um. And I figured, you know, if the kid knew where my car _was_ enough that he, like, got the _first _set of stuff, like, he could get more? Uh, if he knew they were there? So I, uh, I started leaving librettos in the passenger seat and leaving the car unlocked, um, and then I’d do a spot on the radio talking about what I had, um, in there.” His face has gone pink from ear to ear. “So that he could—take them? So he could have them, if he was interested in them, um, since I don’t need them anymore anyway?”

“What’s a libretto?”

“Oh!” For the first time in the conversation, Glitch brightens up. He doesn’t look like he’s about to melt into the chasm of his own chest—he’s got kind of a light to him, a vivacity jumping back. “So the libretto is basically all of the written part of an opera. It’s all the dialogue and how the words fit into the music that the composer already wrote. They’re usually scored, and if you buy one for an older piece, there’s a lot of essays at the beginning about how it was written and it’s super helpful for research and writing papers and things. I got really into opera for a second in my junior year, and I bought a ton of them and got a bunch for Christmas and my birthday and whatever.”

“Cool,” says Chromedome, who regrets asking. “So—“

“So, right, so he took them,” Glitch says hurriedly, “the kid, I mean. I basically emptied my library shelf, which was kind of nice because then I could fit books I needed in there? But, uh, I did a spot a few days ago and nothing’s been picked up. Since like, Tuesday or Wednesday, actually. I didn’t think it was a big deal at the time, but now—“ he breaks off, motions at Chromedome. “I mean, this place isn’t near anything,” he says. “I figured if you had to talk to me, it was probably about—like—that’s not a weird leap of logic, right?”

Chromedome settles back in his chair. “No,” he says, “it’s not.”

There’s a gentle clattering from the next room, and then Prowl’s in the doorway, mug of coffee in hand. “We’re going to need a full description of this man from you,” he says, and Glitch kind of startles like he forgot Prowl was there at all. “Did he tell you anything else about himself? His name, where he lived?”

“Um,” Glitch says, “I didn’t ask a lot of questions, he was kind of intense?” He frowns to himself, like he’s struggling to remember something faraway. “He had a jeep, one of those all-terrain looking ones. Dark green, kind of muddy, I figured they probably lived like—in the _wilderness, _you know, one of those houses in the middle of nowhere? Like, when you’re on the freeway and you’re between two cities and you just see one house and then nothing else for miles? That always freaked me out, actually. How do ambulances know how to get out there?”

“They have their techniques,” Chromedome says, who has always privately wondered himself. He makes a mental note to ask Velocity or somebody about it when he sees them in the grocery store. “I guess it’d be the height of foolishness to ask if you got the license plate?”

“No chance you ever saw this kid, right?” Prowl asks, once Glitch is done shaking his head. “I mean, you don’t know what _he _looked like, do you?”

Glitch frowns at him. “Isn’t he the one you’re looking for?” He asks. “Shouldn’t you guys know what he looks like?”

Chromedome glances at Prowl—Prowl glances back. “To be perfectly honest with you,” Prowl says, “we don’t think our missing person _is _that man’s son.”

“You mean there’s two different kids?”

“We mean we think the guy who came to talk to you—the dad you talked to—might be involved in something kind of shady,” Chromedome interjects. “I suggest you always lock the doors to your car, by the way.”

“You mean you think he’s—like—a kidnapper, or something?”

“We don’t think _anything _yet,” Prowl says, “but we’d like as thorough a description as you can give us. It might help.”

Glitch looks, boggle-eyed, between the two of them, back and forth. “Uh,” he says, “oh—okay. Yeah. Sure, whatever you need.”

Twenty minutes later, they’re walking out of the station with Glitch’s phone number, home address, and signed agreement that the description he gave is completely accurate to his knowledge. In exchange, Chromedome gives him his personal number for emergencies “or in case anything changes,” and Prowl gives him a mug of coffee and some unsolicited advice about dressing professionally at work in the future.

“I can’t believe it,” Chromedome says, “I actually took a statement! By myself!”

_“Mostly _by yourself,” Prowl says, because he can’t say anything that’s 100% nice, “I told you you’d be fine.”

“Yeah,” Chromedome says, and smiles to himself.

There’s stuff they’ve got to do, obviously—now that they’ve got a description, and _another _weird piece in this puzzle, they’re going to have to do paperwork. Write up reports. They’ll probably have to get in contact with the chief, when his day off is over… they won’t see him for a whole day. God, Prowl’s going to have a field day with that. He’ll probably set up a cork board with red strings and color-coded pins and everything.

His fingers brush a piece of paper in his jacket pocket, and he frowns. There’s something in there. Could be a receipt, maybe? Or…

_“Circuitously,” _Chromedome gasps, “Optimus says people talk _circuitously.” _

“That’s the chief to you,” Prowl says. “Tuck in your shirt.”

The morning brings a salve Ratchet didn’t know he needed—vis, Megatron knows how to brush his own teeth. He also knows how to shave. Ratchet’s treated guys with brain damage who lost all their fine motor control long ago and just gave up on putting a knife near their skin, and he knows for a fact that his uncle had learned to brush his teeth in the army when he was headed off to Vietnam. Megatron glares at him and tells him not to be patronizing.

“I had family who couldn’t,” he says, and Megatron’s frown gets all soft and confused. “Did you have a shower?”

Megatron is familiar with the concept of showers, apparently, but the warmth of the water confuses and delights him. Ratchet gives him a quick run-through of the various soaps, feeling slightly guilty for the absence of any quality hair care products—unlike Megatron, his hair is not long enough to require conditioner—helps bag his cast, and quickly gets out of dodge.

It’s not that he’s squeamish about nudity, in either a medical or interpersonal context—but wherever he is with Megatron, it doesn’t feel like—like either of those two things. There’s nudity, and then there’s nakedness, and intimacy takes them from one to the other. It’s the last line he has, scribbled in the sand between them, and he’s not going to cross it.

He makes a shopping list. When Megatron emerges from the shower, having successfully survived being alone for twenty minutes, Ratchet brings him a stack of books, gives him strict instructions not to wander, and—for the first time since coming home from the hospital—leaves his house. He watches it shrink in the rearview mirror of his little grey sedan, trying to imagine it as a mansion, but it just looks the same as it ever was; half-sunk into the ground, poorly painted. 

He decides not to be worried about Megatron. It’s a decision he makes on purpose, because the alternative is worrying about everything and anything. Megatron wouldn’t _run, _Ratchet thinks, surely? On an injured leg, from a place where he’s safe? It _could _all be some wounded gazelle gambit, maybe, to get into his house and win his trust—but for what? There’s nothing to gain. Ratchet doesn’t even have nice silver candlesticks like a benevolent priest in an unreadably long-winded parable about the immoral faults of the French parole system in the 1800s. He’s got a first-edition copy of _Through the Looking Glass_, maybe that’s worth some money. Not as much as an _Alice in Wonderland _would, but that’s life. Anyway, it was his grandmother’s. It’s not exactly in mint condition.

See, this is ‘not worrying’. He’s so incredibly _relaxed. _Ratchet stretches his fingers off the wheel, the pain of pressure having rocketed through them, and hears his knuckles crack unpleasantly. 

Everyone in town calls the market a _supermarket, _mostly because the sign on the front says _‘Super Deals! Market!’ _right on it. You can buy dry goods, canned goods, frozen goods, liquor, ice, and guns, none of which require an I.D. check or a license. If you want cigarettes, you have to go to the gas station, following a feud between the two stores that was as long as it was boring back in the eighties, which Ratchet mostly avoided by having the good sense to be in school at the time. He fills his cart up with frozen hamburger, root vegetables (onions, potatoes, carrots), vodka, saltines, third-day bagels and second-day bread, chicken stock, coffee, half a dozen other things he’s noticed absent around the house, and prepares for a frustrating conversation with the clerk. After a moment of hesitation, he grabs a tin mug.

“Hey, Ratch,” Boulder says, overfamiliar, “big haul today! Planning something special?”

“I’m on vacation,” Ratchet says, the lie practiced and easy. “First Aid’s orders, he’s pulling medical rank as my attending.”

“Can he do that? I thought you were the big boss, ‘what you say goes’, that kind of thing.”

“Not over my attending,” Ratchet says. This actually isn’t a lie—even though he and First Aid _did _have a bit of a shouting match over the phone when he called him last night and found out he was being locked out of the building for the next seven days. “Anyway, I need to do _something _to fill the time. Found ma’s old cookbook, figured I’d give some of it a go. Can’t be worse than _mine_.”

Boulder laughs. “Aw, Lord rest your ma’s soul,” he says, “He called her to heaven too soon. Still! We were expectin’ you here yesterday. It’s not like you to switch the schedule up.”

“Yeah, I know,” Ratchet says, and throws his hands up. “Mea culpa. Won’t happen again.”

Boulder gives him his total, and he fishes it out of his wallet in cash. The _Super Deals! Market! _hasn’t had a card reader for more than a century, and they don’t intend to get one now just because they exist, not with that broken ATM out front. “Mea culpa,” Boulder mutters, as he counts out Ratchet’s change. “That’s Latin?”

“Mm,” Ratchet agrees. “Means ‘my fault’.”

“I like that,” Boulder says. _“Mea culpa. _You’re always bringing real class out here, Ratch. You take care. Let us know if you find anything good in that book!”

“Thanks, I doubt it,” he says, and Boulder laughs and waves as he walks out the front door.

People around here know better than to make long conversations with Ratchet. There’s a kind of distance there, one that always existed in his youth and which he’s taken pains to reinforce in adulthood. Everyone here hated him when he was a child—disgusted by things about him they were aware of before he was, a repellant aberrance they were more than ready to pick apart and pull out of him. Adults. The children they raised, who grew up alongside of him. Now, everything is different—the hospital is running, people have jobs and healthcare again, they can trust their providers. Now, Ratchet is Good, a source of education and Real Class who lived in the big city but never got too Uppity, doesn’t think he’s Better Than You, and maybe he can’t help he was always Different all that time ago.

He must be so lonely, these days. So lonely. How sad, that he lives all alone at that age. Can’t be helped. Deserves kindness. If he’d just let them all reach out to him.

Ratchet throws his bags in the backseat of the sedan and drives home.

Megatron is thrilled by the tin mug, going so far as to knock it hard against the kitchen countertop twice before Ratchet can stop him. “This is excellent,” he says firmly, “sturdy. Much better than the ones we have in the Low Cabin. They’re all warped and bent out of shape and dull to the touch. Scratchy.”

“I think I know how they got that way,” Ratchet says, glaring meaningfully at the skinned counter. It doesn’t really _matter, _he reminds himself. He’s just being finicky. “Look, it’s all yours, but don’t _try _to destroy it.”

“I’m only testing its parameters,” Megatron says cheerfully. “You’re very delicate, aren’t you? Surrounded by delicate things? You must not test them much.”

Ratchet feels himself bristle, and turns away before he can make a face. It wasn’t _meant _as an insult, he reminds himself. Probably. 

“I’m going to make coffee,” he says, and makes coffee.

The day moves in mysterious and yet completely predictable ways. Ratchet receives no calls and no visitors, and so can focus all his mental energy on reminding himself not to freak the fuck out about Megatron’s presence in his home. Megatron doesn’t seem shaken up by any of this, for what it’s worth. He’s busying himself touching everything in Ratchet’s house.

“I’ve made a chart,” Megatron informs Ratchet from the table while Ratchet hacks his way through a soft and oversized onion. “It’s to help us establish debt. This column is a list of things you have done for me, next to an empty one, where we can list what I will do to repay them when I have performed adequately. I have also—“ he holds up the paper demonstratively, and taps the third column with a finger, “made a column detailing my personal skills, which I believe could be bartered to pay some of this off.”

Ratchet sighs. “If I look at the chart, will you stop asking me if—“ he starts, and then stops as he turns to look. “Uh,” he says.

“Yes?"

“Think you got enough pens there, bud?” 

Megatron looks at Ratchet—down at the table—back at Ratchet. He has enough sense to look abashed. “I couldn’t find any more than this,” he says after a moment. “You own a lot.”

The top of the kitchen table is—save for a blank, flat workspace upon which Megatron has apparently been working—entirely covered in a brand-new tablecloth made of pencils, BIC markers, pens, highlighters, and Sharpies. It’s a mosaic of black, blue, and red, all the writing utensils Ratchet should have thrown away years ago but which infest his house like a particularly literate species of cockroach.

“I wasn’t going to keep them,” Megatron continues on, awkwardly, “I just wanted to look at them. I like them.”

“I noticed,” Ratchet says. “Is there a reason for that?”

There’s a gentle clattering and shifting. Megatron rolls a Sharpie under his finger attentively. “They’re rare,” he says after a moment, “we’re not allowed to have them. Con—contraband. And hard to find. I’ve stolen a few before, but they’re rarely at the Upper Cabin to begin with. My brothers all want them to play with, but I’m the only one who can write with them, so—so I’m the only one, of us, who’s allowed to—to have them.”

“Oh,” Ratchet says. That… makes sense, now that he thinks about it. If Megatron is some sort of captive, giving him access to anything that would enable further education could be disastrous. “Well, you… I mean, take as many as you want. I certainly don’t need all this.”

Megatron stares up at him suspiciously. “If this is some sort of elaborate trap—“

“Take them!” Ratchet snaps. “Don’t take them! Do what you want, I don’t care! I don’t—“ his words all stumble to a stop, and he covers his eyes, groaning in frustration. “You don’t have to pay me back for things that aren’t _worth _anything to me,” he says after a moment, “this—whatever this is—isn’t transactional! It’s—I’m—I don’t help people because I _want _something from them, I do it because—because—“

Profound humiliation wells up suddenly, all around him in a choking cloud. The words _‘because I have enough’_ stick in his mouth, repellant in their false humility and self-satisfied indulgence. Ratchet doesn’t work as a doctor because he’s some_ billionaire_ with nothing to do. He went to medical school out of—what, out of spite? Because he wanted respect, because he wanted to embarrass his peers for the way they thought of him? He’d been so angry, back then; it’s funny to think about it now, now that he’s—that he’s—adjusted.

“Because that’s all I’m good at,” he says, at last, and turns away. “You don’t have to offer me anything. I didn’t do it to be thanked.”

After a moment, he cleaves his knife through the onion. His eyes sting.

“I’m sorry,” Megatron says after a moment. His voice is very small, and Ratchet’s stomach lurches with guilt.

“Oh, Jesus,” he says, and rubs his forehead, “don’t apologize, you didn’t do anything wrong. I’m—you’re not—I’ve got _baggage, _that’s what Elita says. I’m—things upset me when they shouldn’t.”

“I understand,” Megatron says, in a voice very empty of understanding.

You wouldn’t think it, from the organization and the focus that Optimus carries with him in day-to-day life, but after eighteen months, he’s still not finished unpacking. Saturday is his day off, and instead of driving out to the gym like he usually does, he goes for a morning run and then settles in for a day of unboxing.

It goes well for a while—he has a poorly-brewed mug of coffee and sifts the grits out between his teeth, finds some cast iron cookware he’d almost forgotten about during the move. He eats turkey and avocado on expensive bread that’s supposed to be good for him (or at least tastes like it), and spends an hour in the bathroom with his clippers, fixing his fade for absolutely no particular reason at all. 

And then he opens a box to find one of Ariel’s sweaters, and the suffocating heaviness of the empty apartment crashes down on his lungs, and he’s gasping on the shore, fingers clutching knit threads like lifelines.

To stay is untenable. He sits on the balcony for an hour, thinking about nothing at all. When the pain does not subside, he puts on his jacket and drives aimlessly around town, wasting gas money and not caring about it. When he gets hungry, he drives up the perilous mountain road and takes a seat at the front counter. Within two minutes, Elita’s pouring decaf into a cup he didn’t ask for and squinting at him.

“You here by yourself?” She asks, looks to the left and to the right demonstratively like she’s furtively hunting for something that isn’t there. “Don’t think I’ve ever seen you stop by without Ratchet.”

“Uh, yeah,” Optimus says, electing to focus more on the second half of that statement than the first. “I talked to him yesterday, he said he was dealing with some family stuff. I know you don’t stay open for me, Elita, I’ll leave before close.”

She peers at him. “Family stuff,” she repeats. “What kind of family stuff?”

“I don’t know,” Optimus says, “I didn’t ask. It seemed rude to pry, and—you know, it’s not like we’re…” he trails off, then shakes his head. “Anyway, we aren’t _so _close that I feel entitled to his personal—private—family stuff. It isn’t any of my business.”

“Sure, it isn’t anyone’s business,” Elita says, “especially since he doesn’t have any.”

Optimus pauses, coffee halfway between the counter and his mouth. “What?”

“Family,” she clarifies. “He hasn’t got one.”

Optimus stares at her. He lowers his coffee back down onto the counter. “What does _that _mean,” he says, his mind scrambling to put pieces together. “There’s his—his parents, surely?”

“Both dead,” she says promptly. “His ma was the last member of the clan, so to speak, and we lost her about fifteen years ago now, that was a shame. Nice lady. Everybody liked her.”

“Something with his step-father?”

Elita shrugs like it doesn’t matter one way or the other, but she’s eyeing him carefully, surveying him up and down. Optimus can’t tell what it is that she’s thinking, but he’s pretty sure it’s nothing good. “They didn’t have a relationship,” she says. “He drove Ratchet out of town in the first place. He was a bully and a bastard, and nobody missed him after they buried him.”

“Maybe—“

“Optimus,” Elita interrupts, “listen to me, don’t torture yourself. He’s done this before, this shutting-down and scampering thing. He thinks he’s supposed to be lonely and he’s too self-centered to listen to anyone else who says different. It's self-flagellating bullshit and it really pisses me off.” She sighs. “There’s nobody, kid. There’s just him. There’s no sick aunt, there’s no brother who needs help moving—“

“What about his ex-husband?” Optimus interrupts, and Elita freezes. “His—in Chicago. Something to do with the divorce proceedings.”

“I doubt it,” Elita says, but she looks unsure. “It wouldn’t be anything legal. They weren’t _really _married, you know? It was a different—a different time.”

“But that _could _be it,” Optimus says firmly, grasping at this detail, “and he wouldn’t talk about it if it was. That’s too personal. That’s—“

“Optimus—“

“That’s why he didn’t tell me, because it was too personal,” he insists, doubling down. “I know him. He wouldn’t lie to me.”

Elita stares at him. Her face flickers with frustration before settling into something bitter and resentful. “Right,” she says, and casts her eyes away, “you must know him better than me.”

The day goes on. Ratchet’s crock-pot gets its weekly exercise twice over, with a thorough cleaning between the two. After some clock-checking and debating and yawning, he decides to let the second batch sit overnight.

“It’s a slow-cooker,” he explains, as Megatron peers over his shoulder, “so I’ll get up tomorrow and it’ll be ready then.”

“It won’t burn the house down?”

“No, it’s not fire-powered,” Ratchet says. “It’s designed to go for hours without a problem. Besides, I’m getting up early tomorrow so I can get out to the police station.”

Megatron ponders on this. He’s leaning on a pair of crutches that Ratchet dug out of the basement after his third unsuccessful attempt at telling Megatron to stop wandering around on his cast. They’re significantly too short for him—even at their zenith, they’re still very much a pair of crutches Ratchet bought for _himself _after a rugby injury in undergrad—but he was already proficient in using them when he first got his hands on them, and expressed delight at their existence. Ratchet isn’t sure how he feels about that.

“The police station,” he mutters. “You’ll be safe there?”

“Yes.”

Megatron eyes him carefully. “They won’t try to arrest you,” he says, “you won’t give yourself up?”

“I don’t plan on it,” Ratchet says. “God. I _hope _I don’t get arrested. I’ve got a story prepared, I’m calm under pressure. I just hope Optimus is rusty—if he’s as sharp as I remember, he’ll crack me open.”

“He sounds very cruel.”

“I’m just too wound up,” Ratchet says. “I don’t know. I just—I wish I knew if he suspected me or not. I don’t know. I don’t know.”

“You’re tired,” Megatron says, and brushes his knuckles over the back of Ratchet’s neck. “I’ve seen this before. You’re afraid.”

“I’m not afraid,” Ratchet says, defensively, “I’m just stressed out, alright? I just need some sleep. I’m—I’m going to bed. That’ll help clear my head.”

“I can help you,” Megatron says. “Let me help you.”

Ratchet moves to shrug Megatron’s hand off of him, something unplanned and tetchy sitting on the back of his tongue, and realizes that the gentle brush of knuckles has been replaced by an equally gentle—but infinitely more firm—grip against his neck. When he shifts, the grip shifts with him.

“I’m going to bed,” Ratchet repeats, and turns over his shoulder to peer up at Megatron. Something in his gut goes cold all over, a radiating, nauseous cold that leaves him unsettled and unbalanced. Megatron is much closer to him than he’s felt before. “You—you have to let go. Come on, we’ll go up together.”

Megatron is peering at him without the openness of his normal curiosity, eyes hooded and lips carefully still. His intention is hard to read. “You don’t want to be paid back for things that aren’t worth anything to you,” he says. “I understand that. It’s—to you, it must be overwhelming, what I accept as charity. All of this is overwhelming you.” His arm comes up at Ratchet’s side and presses into the counter next to him, pinning him in. “I can help you with that.”

Ratchet stares at the hand on the counter. His chest feels very tight now, sick with the proximity of his ward. The strangeness of his form, of his smell. His intentions, so clear and kind last night in the warmth of his bed, have gone distant in murky water.

“Let me go,” he says anxiously, and the hand on his neck releases. He turns to face Megatron, his back against the sharp edge of the counter. “Whatever you want to talk about, it can wait until we’re upstairs. We can—I don’t know. We can look at your… chart?”

As if to reassure him, Ratchet reaches up and touches Megatron on the arm. He doesn’t know why—maybe because Megatron’s always reacted positively to touch before, maybe because Megatron reaches out to touch _him _so much. Either way, it’s the wrong choice. Megatron looks down at his hand, almost surprised, and grabs him by the wrist.

“I don’t want to repay you for _everything,” _Megatron says firmly. Ratchet, heart jumping, jerks his wrist to get away, and with a sinking feeling in his gut, realizes Megatron doesn’t even flinch at his struggling. It’s like he doesn’t feel him pulling away at all. “That’s too much for you. But I can repay you for the things you did—the things even _you _have to realize are exceptional, are kind.” He looks down at Ratchet, and his whole face softens. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I know you don’t like to be thanked, but I have to do _something.”_

“What?” Ratchet tries to yank away, and feels himself being pushed more firmly against the counter. Another hand, steel-solid and rough to the touch, grabs his other wrist and pins it down. “Megatron, why—“

And then Megatron is kissing him, lips hot and rough with dead skin and uneven teeth.

Ratchet’s body freezes in place, a wild animal facing down the blaring lights of a car barreling towards it. Something young and lonely in him thrills, purely physical like an animal in heat, at the way he’s being pressed back and held down. Everything else in him, every sour experience in a car and at awful college parties and in cornfields when things went _wrong, _and everything older and wiser and almost parental in concern—tightens. Writhes. As fast as his skin goes warm, his insides freeze over in terror and pity and disgust.

His hands are pinned down against the counter, but there’s a few inches of space between his head and the cabinets behind it, and Ratchet jerks his head back, wresting his mouth free. “Stop,” he manages, breathless, “stop! Let go!”

Megatron is staring at him oddly, confused and frustrated and almost _angry, _and almost _eager, _a host of flickering emotions morphing from one motivation to another. “I’m making it even,” he says firmly. “It’ll be alright, if I do this. Once it’s even, we won’t have to talk about it anymore.”

“What? Stop!” Ratchet wriggles futilely, frozen terror striking him in savage waves. _‘I’m making it even,’ _what does _that _mean? Is he trying to—to pay his ‘debt’ back? Does he think Ratchet—does he think he _wants _this? Does he think Ratchet would ever _ask _for this?

Has someone asked him for it before?

With some distant relief, he realizes Megatron is still staring at him. Even if he can’t get free, he’s got a few seconds to talk _sense _into him, to convince him not to _do _this—to figure out _why _he wants to do this. “Stop, I don’t—I don’t want you to do this,” he manages, brain spinning helplessly. “You don’t—you _can’t _owe me this! And I don’t _want _you to owe me this—I mean—a person _can’t _owe someone else like this, if you—if it’s so important to you—“

“You _are _afraid,” Megatron says, his tone all dawning realization. His eyes are wide and focused. Dark. “You don’t have to be. It’s _okay. _I’ve done this before.” He smiles, small and reassuring. “I’m good at it. You don’t have to do anything.”

Ratchet goes cold all over.

“We don’t—“ he says, which is all he can manage before Megatron kisses him again, pressing his head back against the cabinets, locking him in place. Vaguely, he’s aware of the buzz against his lips; Megatron, humming against him.

The last three days of his life rise up in a chorus of newborn knowledge, trying to chant _cultural differences, _but they’re not half as loud as the old, weathered core of him that remembers the terror of being gagged in the back of a pickup, which is screaming _lunatic! Lunatic! Hurt him and run!_

Megatron lets go of his left hand to grab him by the waist, and before any gentle part of himself can talk him down, Ratchet rears back and jams his hand, hard, into his throat.

He jerks back, coughing, and Ratchet hits him again, this time hard across the cheek, panicked and undignified but thoroughly effective. It feels like slapping a slab of rock and stings everywhere, but Ratchet doesn’t have time to whimper and grip at it like a soft-handed academic in a film. He’s wrenching his other hand free from the loosening hold on it and ducking under Megatron’s arm, sprinting across the room, making distance.

Everything is—hot, frightened and electric and humiliated, and he stumbles to a stop, getting his back to the opposite wall. Megatron is standing stock still, staring at him, eyes blown wide in shock, one hand on his cheek.

“Ratchet,” he says, “I didn’t mean—“

“You didn’t mean _what?” _Ratchet snaps, hysterical. He is aware, vaguely, of a knocking sound, something hammering away. His heart is thudding in his chest—surely, it’s the blood pounding in his ears. “You didn’t mean to _attack _me?”

Megatron looks pained. The shock is starting to drain away, to be replaced with mortified regret. “I didn’t—understand,” he tries, helplessly, “I thought you meant—because you’re so humble—“

“I said _no!” _Ratchet shouts. “I said _stop! _Two words not _typically _associated with great complexity of meaning! Just—stay away from me! Don’t—“

Which is when, with a cracking of wood, the front door bursts open, and Optimus, in civvies, kicks his way through.

“Ratchet,” he says, just when Ratchet says “what the _fuck,” _and stumbles back against the wall.

“I’m so sorry, I was at the door,” Optimus says, and reaches out to grab Ratchet’s upper arm (which is good, because Ratchet’s about 90% sure he’s seconds from collapsing onto the ground), “and you didn’t come, and—and then I heard you yelling, and I thought—“

As if struck by this statement, Optimus’ head jerks up suddenly, swiveling around. Ratchet’s brain, functioning on its lowest capacity, takes a full second to realize he’s looking for the _someone _that Ratchet was yelling _at—_and by the time he’s done that calculus, it’s too late.

_“You,” _Optimus says, and then, “you?” and then, “hey—“ 

There’s a flurry of noise, and when Ratchet jerks his head back to look at Megatron, the kitchen is empty. He makes an embarrassing gurgling noise.

“Ratchet,” Optimus says, head whipping back to face him, “my car’s parked outside, it should be unlocked. Go through the front door, get in, and lock the doors behind you.”

“What? Wait—“ Ratchet scrubs a panicked hand over one of his eyes. His thoughts are coming in painful bursts of color, smashing into him with unrelenting frequency. Not one of them makes sense except for the smell of Optimus’ cologne and the phantom of hands on his arms. “I don’t understand. Why am _I _leaving? What are you doing here? I thought I was supposed to—to come meet you _tomorrow, _I don’t—“

“We’ll talk in the car,” Optimus says. “You need to get out of this building. I’ll cover you and follow you to the car once you’re clear, and then we can get to the station to get backup.”

“What?”

“Chromedome should be there, at least,” Optimus is saying, head up, swiveling to follow the distant sound of footsteps thumping. “Never thought I’d say this, but I wish it were Prowl instead. If I can gear up, at least, I’d be able to handle this almost on my own. I can’t imagine the kid’s going to be much help.”

“Gear _up?” _Ratchet’s brain does not get paid enough to do the amount of work he’s asking of it. He’s tired, scared, horribly rattled and, embarrassingly, _kind _of horny. “What the hell do you think you’re going to do, shoot someone?”

“If I have to,” Optimus says, steely. “I’m not letting that son of a bitch break into your _house _and just get away with it. We’ve been following this trail. _That’s_ the guy who broke out of the hospital, I’m sure of it. He’s being chased by career criminals, and if he’s breaking and entering, I’d bet he’s one of them, too. So I’m _going _to _arrest _him, by any means necessary.”

Oh, God.

“Optimus,” Ratchet says, heart thudding, guilt welling up in his hands, “he didn’t break into my house! Okay? I—I let him in. I brought him in.”

Optimus looks at him. “What?”

“I let him in!” And then the weight is falling off of him in a rush. “I’m the reason he went missing. I took him out of the hospital! It’s not his fault that he’s here.” He grabs at his own shirt. “It’s mine.”

Ratchet’s best friend is a serious man, to whom strong emotion does not come often. That’s why it _hurts _to look at him now, to watch his face contort in confusion, hurt, shock, anger—to watch his face settle, hard, into something controlled and furious.

“I hope,” he says, and his voice is agonizingly cold, “that you have a _very _good explanation.”

There’s another thumping noise, this time from the upstairs, and Ratchet can’t identify it as footsteps. He’s busy, anyway, staring back hard at his friend, ice cold under the blaze of his fury. “So do I,” he says, and means it.

They draw straws for it. Atomizer cuts one coffee stirrer shorter than the other and sticks them both in his hand, and Getaway takes the short one and curses up and down.

“Maybe we don’t have to check in,” Atomizer says placatingly, “it’s only been two days. They’re probably not worried yet.”

“We lost it at night,” Getaway snaps, “that makes this three. The night we lost him, the night we stayed here, and tonight. If we don’t check in, we’ll lose our dicks and _then _our heads.”

“Oh, I guess it has been three,” Atomizer says, counting on his fingers. “You know, I just totally lose track of time when I’m not at work. I’m one of those guys who needs a schedule, you know?”

“Just get out of here,” Getaway says, waving a hand and staring ominously down at his cell phone, “go get me some cigarettes or something, I’m gonna smoke whatever I’ve got left. And Tylenol, we’re all out of Tylenol.”

“You want an Arizona?”

“Green tea.”

“Porno rag?”

“Get the fuck out of here, man.”

Atomizer takes the shitty fucking car that doesn’t work down to the gas station, where he fills up the tank to waste some time and then wanders the aisles a little, picking up anything that might be nice to have in the room. Tylenol, shaving cream and razors—he didn’t pack anything, and while he doesn’t mind his clothes having a bit of a smell, the itch on his cheeks can’t be borne—two Arizonas, a six-pack of PBR, Slim-Jims and Five Hour Energies and fuck knows what else. Unlike Getaway, he’s not hopeful that this trip will be short, and no part of him believes that “waiting it out” is going to bring that prize their way.

What they need is a dog, before that smell all gets trampled. He spins a rotating display with name-keychains on it and listens to the rattle. Too bad his partner’s too chickenshit to admit he fucked up. He’s probably gonna tell the boss it’s all Atomizer’s fault somehow, rat him out. But what’s there to do? They get on. And he’ll shake his head and tell Getaway he’s being an asshole, give him a cold shoulder until he apologizes and buys dinner or whatever, and then they’ll act like everything’s fine. As long as they get that cargo back. If they don’t, he doubts he’ll ever see the inside of an Applebee’s again.

“Hey!” The clerk says as he approaches, putting down her magazine, “you all ready to buy?”

Any prospect of buying a Playboy or something to rile Getaway up dies in Atomizer’s throat when he looks at her. Blonde hair, blue eyes, and the kind of lips that white celebrities pay thousands for smiling right at him. He fumbles (but luckily does not drop) the Arizona cans. She’s exactly his kind of soft, big tits and soft hands with practical, short fingernails. His cavalier attitude towards the smell of his clothing has been replaced, like lightning, with the twisting agony of shame. It’s not that he thinks he’d have a chance if he were a little cleaner, or anything. It’s just so _humiliating._

“All this—uh, and two packs of Pall Malls, please,” Atomizer says, smiling nervously. Unlike Getaway, he doesn’t have a dashing face to throw at attractive women. His teeth aren’t all that straight, and he’s awkwardly aware of his hair, which is not handsomely windswept so much as it is unbrushed. To his enormous relief, the girl behind the counter smiles back at him and chirps a friendly “sure thing!” Before retrieving her little shelf-arm from under the cash register and reaching up for the boxes in question. They’re on a high shelf, and she’s pretty short. Atomizer feels a little guilty.

“So I haven’t seen you around before,” the girl says, “are you new in town?”

“Oh, no, I’m—we’re just passing through,” Atomizer says, and clears his throat. “It’s a really, um, lovely spot here, though. Great views. You like it here?”

She shrugs. “I’m just here in the summers,” she says, “I’m at school in New York, but I come home and stay with my aunt to save some cash so I can get out of here one day. Hey, y’all should go visit her diner! It’s the one up the hill, it’s open late and it’s real homey.”

“Who knows if our car could even make it up that road? It’s totally falling apart.” Atomizer rifles through everything Getaway has ever told him about talking to women. _If you want to be interesting,_ he hears Getaway saying, _you’ve got to be interested._ “Say, why don’t you work for your aunt, if she’s got her own place?”

“Oh—you know how it is with family,” she says, shrugging. “I dunno. We don’t really agree on most stuff. I told her once that her coffee is gonna go stale if she leaves it on the Bunn for more than three hours and she launched into some rant about how I don’t have the _experience _to criticize her—oh, I’m gonna need to see some I.D., sorry.”

“Yeowch, my baby face strikes again.” He passes her his I.D. and fumbles for his credit card. “So you’re some kinda preeminent coffee aficionado? Uh, I mean, it sounds like you like it.”

“Yeah, I just love coffee,” she says, peering at the tiny picture of his face and presumably doing some math in her head, “I didn’t until I lived somewhere that has coffee, though, you know? The good stuff. Home ain’t exactly Italy. There’s nowhere in town that’s even got an espresso machine.”

“I’ve been to Italy,” Atomizer lies, less for any particular purpose and more from a desire to be interesting to an attractive woman, “the coffee’s definitely better than here in the states.”

“Really?” Her eyes light up, and Atomizer gets a giddy rush. “Where’d you go?”

“I was mostly sightseeing,” he lies, scraping the back of his skull for any useful details he’s gleamed from the travel channel on long nights at the camp, “but when I, uh, went to see the parthenon, I did stop by Cafe Treviso. Just followed the smell, basically.”

“Oh, _wow,” _the girl says, and giggles, and hands his I.D. back. “If I ever got to go to Treviso, I’d just about die. That’d be it for me. It’s supposed to be, like, the greatest coffee in the world.”

“Oh, yeah, it was great,” he says, awkwardly, “though I guess I’m not so discerning as you.”

He pays with a credit card, which they always say not to do in movies and stuff, but like, what’s the big deal? It’s not like this police station is going to be able to track it on anything.

“You’re all set,” the cashier says, “hey, if your car’s giving you trouble, there’s a mechanic in town, right next to the green grocer. Whirl keeps kinda weird hours, but I bet you could get it in for her to look at.”

“Her name’s Whirl?”

“Yeah, is that—you know her?”

“Uh, no,” Atomizer lies, “it’s just a good name for a mechanic. I just figured I heard wrong.”


	4. Exodus 6:9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... okay, hear me out.  
This chapter is not actually... technically... finished. I've been hacking at it for about three months now.  
Three months? you cry. But it's been seven months! you cry.  
RIGHT. SO.
> 
> I had to put all my writing on hiatus early this year to prepare to move across the country. And, uh, with the WAY THINGS ARE GOING IN THE UNITED STATES, I haven't exactly had the juice to crank out a particularly large amount of product.  
I kind of faffed around with whether I should hang onto this chapter until it was completely finished, but I decided that at this point, 'waiting until it's done' is making me stagnate and making me really reluctant to write. SO.  
This is the first half of what WAS going to be chapter four, and is now chapter four-and-five. I apologize for it being shorter than other chapters, but hopefully you guys are, uh... also feeling some of the stress and lack of productivity that 2020 has just REALLY been cranking onto our collective shoulders, and know where I'm coming from, and, uh, yeah!  
Ultimately, I just wanted you guys to have this NOW, since the first half is totally completed and the second half is half-filled-in skeleton scenes. Mostly because seven months is KIND of a long wait and I just. Could not handle waiting any longer.  
So this chapter will be shorter, the next chapter will probably also be shorter, and then hopefully we can get back on track. If you are still here, I'm so grateful and also a little boggled? I can't wait twenty minutes to get my coffee at a starbucks without kind of thinking of taking off without it. Not that I have been to a starbucks or ANY restaurant. in. a while.  
like a WHILE
> 
> WARNINGS: the following chapter contains transphobic language / discussions of transphobia, discussions of child abuse, disdain for the American police force, and bringing a knife to a gun fight.  
If you need more detailed information about any of these things, please message me privately and I'll be more than happy to disclose the circumstances around any / all of them. Discretion is advised.

_'And Moses spake so unto the children of Israel: but they hearkened not unto Moses for anguish of spirit, and for cruel bondage.'_

It’s finally time to talk about the cyclops.

It’s time to talk about her, because she’s carving her fingernails off in little shards when Getaway drives his piece of shit car into her garage. She recognizes him, of course, because the story wouldn’t go on further than this if she didn’t—they know each other intimately and well. Enough to shudder when they hear each other’s names.

Whirl is six-foot-three of the ugliest muscle and bone you’ve ever seen knitted together, with a grin like blood on the battlefield and an eye that glitters like the jewelry you’ve left in your will. Of the things she was born with, she’s missing one eye, one leg (knee-down), one cock, two hands, four teeth, and every ounce of kind forgiveness. She has replaced the cock with silicone tits and the forgiveness with a seemingly unending supply of bullets.

She also has a dog. Getaway fucking hates her, and he hates the fucking dog. 

“Whirl,” he says, a wide grin across his face, “my favorite unpaid associate! How’s tricks?”

Whirl looks him in the eye. Whirl twists her torso and spits on the ground noisily.

“So, here’s the deal,” Getaway says quickly, because she looks like she’s fixing to say something and he doesn’t want to know what it is, “we’re just in town on an errand for the boss, and, you know how it is—the old car broke down. They hardly pay us well enough to buy something a little nicer, you know? So, that is, we were hoping, maybe… I mean, the girl at the gas station says you’re running a real garage now, so…”

“Tailgate’s a good kid,” Whirl says in a voice like gravel underfoot, “I fix cars for _good kids._ You know who I _don’t _fix cars for?” She gets to her feet, and Getaway’s eyes travel downwards automatically to her prosthetic. It’s a new one he’s never seen before, the kind athletes use, black and shaped like an upside-down question mark. She could run a lot easier with that, he thinks, and swallows. “I _don’t _fix cars for backstabbing little punks who think they’re smart because they always _get out _while the going is good! I don’t fix cars for traitors and mutineers! In short, I do not fix vehicles for _you,_ Getaway. God, I hope you didn’t know this was my garage, or I’m humiliated on your fuckin’ behalf!”

“You’re the cyclops, right?” Atomizer says, and Getaway (who has been nervously planning his next point of repartee) winces. He takes a tiny step away. “You’re famous! Do you still breed dogs?”

“Who the _fuck _are you?” Whirl snarls, her eye snapping to him, teeth bared, fists clenched. She sizes him up—measures him—then snaps back to Getaway, points an ugly claw at Atomizer. “Who the fuck is this, Getaway? Do me a favor, keep your bitch on a leash!”

“Shut up,” Getaway hisses hurriedly at Atomizer, who looks shocked and confused. Then, quickly, in dulcet tones that have never worked on Whirl before but which he _hopes _will work now, “as it happens, I did hear your name on the grapevine—I didn’t want to approach you at first, but I thought it might be an opportunity to—to tell you how really _sorry _I am, to make amends, to catch up a bit—“

“Where’s your gun?”

“Huh?” Getaway’s fingers flinch involuntarily. “I don’t have a gun. Why would I bring a gun to talk to you?”

“Because you always bring a gun to everything,” Whirl replies, lightning-quick, “because the last time I saw you, you were walking away, free as a goddamn bird, on a plea bargain that jammed another five years onto my sentence! Because if you had any goddamn sense to come see me, hearing, _as you say, _my name _on the grapevine,_ you would know how badly I’d want to watch three liters of blood pour out of your scrawny goddamn neck. Because, despite everything you do to the contrary, you’re not actually God’s perfect idiot. Because you know better than to come unprepared.”

“Whirl, baby,” Getaway says, “I just want to be friends.”

“I want to see your gun on the table,” Whirl says.

“I don’t have a gun.”

“You know, I watched a really interesting episode of Mythbusters the other day,” she says, “if I was holding a brandished knife, I’d be able to get it all the way into your chest before you even pulled heat. Down to the hilt! Fascinating episode.”

Getaway stares at Whirl. Whirl stares at Getaway.

“Fine,” Getaway says, and sets his gun on the table. Smith and Wesson, .45 ACP. It cost him a small fortune. He’s just hoping she doesn’t think about keeping it when their talk is done.

“How nice for us,” Whirl says, and sets her piece on the table. It looks like a trench knife. Jesus Christ, was she planning on _disassembling_ him? “That’s better. We can really _talk _like this, can’t we? Go on.”

Getaway’s eyes are fixed on the table. “With what?”

“With telling me how _sorry _you are,” Whirl says, and sits back down comfortably in her chair. New leg, old arms, Getaway thinks. He recognizes those prosthetics, the hooks of black iron, functionality over form. They’re intensely ugly, and their sharp edges promise pain that fists have no purchase over. “You’re sorry. Sorry for me! Poor me, to get pity from _you.” _

“It’s not pity,” Getaway says quickly, “it’s remorse. I miss you. I wish I hadn’t done what—what I did. I want to make it up to you.” He gives her a look that he hopes is suitably pathetic. “Can’t we just go back to how things were?”

“You ruined my career,” Whirl snarls, “I spent hard time in a _men’s prison. _I can’t go back to the way things were between you and a woman who doesn’t even exist anymore, and with the sense I’ve got, I wouldn’t want to.” In one of her claws, she casually picks up his gun, holding it loosely, more like she’s weighing it than brandishing it at him. That could change in a matter of seconds, he knows, and tries to figure out what to say next.

“Look, we just need a dog,” Atomizer interrupts, and Getaway winces—he’d forgotten the dumbass was there. “You don’t have to fix the car if you don’t want to.”

“Jesus Christ, somebody get a fucking muzzle on this kid!” Whirl snaps. “Do me a favor, sweetheart, fix her manners or get her fucking fixed.”

“Atomizer, shut up,” Getaway hisses, palms sweating. He can’t lose this connection, not now, not with everything at stake—

He hasn’t told Atomizer, yet, what the boss said, about what will happen to them if they can’t get Number Three back. He’s not sure he will. It raises the hairs on the back of his neck just thinking about it. They’ll all be in deep shit if it gets to the feds, any of it.

“Why don’t you tell him I don’t sell dogs anymore?” Whirl snaps. “Since you’re so busy gossiping together. I gave all that up. Ten years in the slammer does that to a woman. I’m RE-UH-BILY-TADED now, you know.” She holds up a claw, jamming it in the air at every syllable. “RE-UH-BILY-TADED. I got an honest business. I got an honest job. Ain’t nothing you’ve ever given a go across the bow at, is it?”

“You keep greyhounds,” Getaway says coolly, much more coolly than he means to, “I’ve seen them on the property. They look good. Lean. Not so goddamn rehabilitated after all, are you? You’re still racing, aren’t you?”

It’s a gamble. Not one that pays off.

“For your information, those are all _rescues,_” Whirl says, sneering, one lip curled back. “I rescue dogs now. They’re all RE-UH-BILY-TADED, too. Damaged goods, trying to make it in a shipment, just like me.”

Getaway is quiet for a moment. “Fine,” he concedes, “we shouldn’t have come. I didn’t want to. Just give me the gun back and I’ll get out of here for good in my busted-ass car.”

Whirl stares at him. His gun is slung easily in her claws, casual and threatening. Her eye keeps running up and down him, like she’s working out what to say next. In the old days, he thinks, she’d have a cigarette in her hand, about to take a drag, her mouth all confusing sexuality in the sort of life they’d led together, alone except for other freaks like themselves, mostly more savage than their own tendencies.

A thousand shared hotel rooms, a thousand beers, a thousand wrestles and shootouts and strip clubs and cockfights, all of which he’d burned without remorse to—yes, to save his own hide. It had been practical. He doesn’t regret it for a second, he’d served no ugly time behind bars for taking the smart way out of that particular prisoner’s dilemma, and yet—

And yet, with Atomizer glued to his left arm, he longs for her. For someone who had understood him, once. Who had seemed soft and new in the light of streetlamps and the moon, flickering across the dashboard of a hundred different stolen cars.

“Fuck it,” she says, “fuck it, I’m curious. Fuck you. You were always so goddamn mysterious. I’ll fix the fuckin’ car. Full asking price. Just answer me this”; and here she leans across the table, arms muscular, braids slinging out over her shoulders, “what do you need a fuckin’ dog for?”

“Can we, at least,” Ratchet says, rubbing the back of his neck, “sit down, for this?”

Optimus’ neck is craning back, his eyes flashing. He’s probably trying to listen for footsteps, figure out where Megatron is in the house. Ratchet feels extremely tired. Not just because it’s getting close to one in the morning, either.

Everything has fallen apart at last, all the tenuous little lies sticking to each other tethering him to safety have finally been torn through at once. He can’t find it in himself to be afraid—there’s a sort of comfort in the futility of his future. Three decades of hard work with the hospital are slipping through his fingers… First Aid should be able to pick up his position. People don’t like the young doctors so much, but they’re smart, good at administrative work… maybe… 

“I’d rather stay where I am,” Optimus says at last, his voice formal and cold. It’s mellifluous. It hurts to listen to. “If it’s all the same to you.”

“Well, I’m going to sit,” Ratchet says, and sits. The table is still fairly ruined with pencils. “There’s a lot to say, and I have bad knees.”

“I didn’t know you had bad knees.”

“I guess it just never came up,” Ratchet says. “They only really start acting up around hour twelve. It’s why I started doing administrative work. Good excuse to be at a desk.”

Optimus nods. Then, awkwardly, “that smells good.”

“Oh. Thanks.” Ratchet glances into the kitchen at his slow cooker. “You’re welcome to it, after you arrest me. I certainly won’t need it.”

Optimus gives him a pained look. “I don’t _want _to arrest you,” he says miserably. “Just—tell me the truth! Tell me you’re not involved in anything criminal!”

“I don’t think I can do both,” Ratchet says. “Look, will it preserve you emotionally at all to know I thought it was the right thing to do?”

“Just tell me what happened,” Optimus says, softening. “I’m not here as—as an officer. I came here as a friend. I thought you were in trouble.”

Ratchet rubs his forehead. “I had… at least, I thought that I had… reason to believe that his life was in danger,” he says after a moment. “I thought… please don’t think I’m trying to make excuses for myself, but I was just addled, I was exhausted. I… I’d been up for hours, and I was tired, and he was… so _scared, _I just…”

He trails off. Optimus is watching him, arms crossed, expression carefully blank. An old interrogation tactic—if you don’t say anything, your suspect will just keep talking, trying to explain themselves. Optimus had explained it himself, over coffee one night—people talk in circles when they think they have something to prove.

Ratchet considers clamming up, demanding to see a lawyer. He could—it’s within his rights. And then this would be about _not going to jail, _which he’s already made his peace with, and not about Optimus, who broke into his house with intent to save—what? His life? His pride? This is his only real friendship, the only one he _really _has left. He only sees Elita at the diner; Ironhide won’t answer his calls; the rest of the doctors are too young to really be open and honest with.

Anyway, freedom tastes sweet, but what really soothes the soul is confession, or so the Catholics say. Or someone else. P.G. Woodhouse? Might be. Ratchet wonders blithely if there’s anything good to read in prison. Probably not. He rubs an eye irritably—his contacts are acting up.

“There’s whole swathes of the night I don’t remember,” he says after a moment, “I don’t even really remember driving home, I just… I must have gone down to the garage, but I just remember waking up on the floor in my living room. I…”

“What did you mean when you said he was scared?” Optimus redirects him, gently. 

“He…” Ratchet says, and stares hard at the wall opposite Optimus. If he doesn’t look up at him, it’s like they’re not having a conversation. He can almost pretend he’s talking to himself. “Yes… First Aid told me to go home, because it was late and my day off and I wasn’t supposed to be there—that little shit. He’s locked me out of the building, by the way, which he would be in _real _trouble about if I didn’t have more pressing matters in my own home.” He shakes his head. “Anyway, I tried to ignore him, but he kept at it until I gave in. I was talking to our John Doe at the time, um…” He glances up at Optimus. “His name’s Megatron, by the way, that’ll make this conversation a little easier.”

Optimus clicks his tongue. “Megatron,” he says, doubtfully. “Are you sure that’s his real name?”

“Probably not,” Ratchet admits, shrugging. “But that’s what he calls himself. Who am I to tell someone not to rebrand?”

“Megatron,” Optimus mutters again, bitterly. “He sounds like a supervillain.”

Ratchet shakes his head. “He—he got scared, we heard… voices, in the hallway. First Aid was bringing someone to see him, and he said…” He presses his face down into his knuckles, the pressure painful on his chapped lips. “He said, ‘those are my owners’. And he… he tried to run, but he was hurt, so he couldn’t.”

“Tried to run?”

“Threw himself on the ground.” It feels so distant, the memory—it’s traded places with something in his childhood, something that ought to be long-forgotten. In it’s place of clarity, he can almost hear the sound of footfalls coming up the stairs. Towards his room, his little sanctuary, the place he kept his record player and his books. “He was looking for a place to hide.”

Optimus says nothing.

“I used to do that, when I was a kid,” Ratchet says, almost to himself. “I saw him do it and it just—it felt so familiar—something I did, something I knew. I used hide in my closet when I heard my stepfather coming down the hallway, like I thought another door would protect me. He figured it out, of course, after it happened twice, but it was the only hiding place I had.” He stares at the whitewash of the wall. “Sometimes he pretended not to know where I was for a few minutes. Like a mother playing with a baby. Maybe he thought it was funny that I—that I hoped—“

Optimus says nothing.

“I was worried he’d hurt himself,” Ratchet says, “Megatron. So he—I—I went to help him up, and he…” best not to mention Megatron had grabbed him and almost strangled him. It probably won’t look good for either of them. “He asked me to help him. Begged me. And I thought—I thought he was in danger. Real danger. I didn’t want to leave him there, so. I didn’t.” He shakes his head. “That’s it.”

“That’s _it?” _Optimus asks him, voice disbelieving. It startles Ratchet—he looks up, looks at Optimus, like he’s been grabbed by his collar and dragged out of that old and sick reverie—and there it is, anger twisting and bursting in growth behind those placid eyes. “Jesus _Christ, _Ratchet, it didn’t even occur to you that he could be a criminal? That he could be lying?”

It hurts. It _hurts. _Ratchet feels his face stinging, like it’s been slapped, like tears are coming, and his teeth grit until the hurt in his jaw is more than the one in his eyes. He can taste blood.

“I’m not fucking _stupid, _Optimus!” He snaps back. He finds himself up on his feet, one fist balled at his hip. “Of _course _I thought he was lying to me! Of _course _I thought he was taking advantage of me! But if there was a chance? If there was a _chance, _however small, that he was telling the truth and I stood there and did _nothing?”_

Optimus stares at him, stock still, and Ratchet’s shoulders crumple. He turns his face away. “I couldn’t live with that,” he says, after a moment. “With the not-knowing. I couldn’t. Maybe you could, I don’t know.”

There’s silence. Quietly, Optimus pulls out a chair and takes a seat.

“I guess I shouldn’t be surprised,” he says after a moment. “I guess they make doctors out of better stuff than the rest of us.”

“Dumber stuff, maybe,” Ratchet mutters. “How would you define this, legally? What kind of time should I be expecting?”

Optimus is staring down at the table. “What’s with all the pens?” He asks.

_“Please _focus, Optimus.”

“They’re mine,” Megatron says, and Ratchet jumps—Optimus wheels around in his seat—as they both turn to face him. He’s standing quietly in the hallway, leaning on one crutch, arms folded over his chest. “You can’t arrest him. He did the right thing.”

_“You,”_ Optimus says, “I have a bone to pick with you! Who the hell do you think you are?”

Megatron stares down at him. He doesn’t look confused—he’s gone flat, like a poker player or an imbecile. Ratchet knows he is neither, and anxiety curls in his gut. “I am Megatron, speaker of the Low House,” he recites, “I am indebted to this man who has saved my life, and I will not allow you to arrest him. If you attempt to do so, I will kill you.”

“No!” Ratchet shouts, almost beside himself. Neither Optimus nor Megatron turns to look at him—their eyes are locked on each other. “Don’t—don’t _say _things like that, Jesus, don’t do anything! I’ll go without a fuss, just don’t—“

“It’ll be easy,” Megatron says, like Ratchet’s voice is going in one ear and right out the other. “Look at you, self-satisfied and aging fast. Soft hands. What kind of fight can you put up? Touch him, and I kill you."

“Wow,” Optimus says, and turns to glare at Ratchet, “I don’t like him _at all.” _

“Megatron, _stop,” _Ratchet says, neck hot and getting hotter, “it’s over! I have quite literally made a confession. All of this is my fault! Maybe—if they take you into custody, everything will be alright, they’ll get everything figured out…”

“Goddamn it, both of you stop,” Optimus says, and gets to his feet, jabbing a finger in Ratchet’s direction. “You’re not going to jail!” He turns his head, stares pointedly at Megatron. “You might be. I’m not satisfied that you’re not some kind of criminal, but I’m not taking him in on your behalf!”

“What?” Ratchet says. And then, feeling that this isn’t enough, “huh?” And then, further feeling wrong-footed, “how does that figure?”

“I don’t know!” Optimus shouts. His hands are on either side of his head, and Ratchet notices briefly that his hair looks especially crisp, like it’s just been touched up. “I’m working on it, alright? I’m figuring the variables out. But I can’t—_arrest _you if I don’t think you’ve done anything wrong! It’s against—it’s, it’s a personal, code, there has to be something on the books for a scenario like this!”

“He has backed down due to my superior strength, stance, and bravery,” Megatron says, his chest swelling up like a bird, “I told you I would fix this.”

“What?” Ratchet says, again. “You didn’t fix anything.”

“I’m with Ratchet,” Optimus says, “you literally just made the situation worse.”

“I’ve stood my ground,” Megatron says, “I’ve drawn a line in the sand. If you want him, you go through me.”

“Fine,” Optimus says, and sits, “then I’ll go through you.”

Prowl is anticipating a difficult conversation when he hauls the hiccoughing police car up the hill and into the garage. No one’s taken any of their, er, _classic _vehicles in for a checkup since long before he got his badge from the academy, and part of him is terrified the whole thing will be diagnosed with a bill their office can’t afford. He’s willing to haggle, to a point, but—well, he doesn’t want to put Whirl out of hard-earned money. There’s not so very much money going around in the first place, and just about everybody can afford to lose more of it than Whirl can.

She’s nowhere to be seen when he pulls up, so he parks the car and climbs out, scanning the mostly-empty car lot. One of Whirl’s rescues, newly-socialized Greyhound dogs with long legs and flapping heads, lopes over to him and starts whining. Prowl’s got nothing against dogs. He gives it a friendly scratch behind the ears.

“Hey, there,” Whirl calls, and Prowl glances up to see her unfold herself from underneath the only other car in the lot, one he’s not sure he’s ever seen before. He waves at her. “Geez, I didn’t know I was doing anything so suspicious up here. What’s the fuzz want to do with me?”

“Hey, Whirl,” Prowl says, smiling. He likes Whirl. It’s hard _not _to like Whirl, really—she’s funny, tough, and good company in a game of pool. Doesn’t cut corners. Honest, fair. Good with dogs. Once you get past all the screeching metal, there’s nothing scary about her, either (which is what Chromedome protests whenever he clams up around her). “The beater’s not doing so hot, as it happens.”

“Is it ever?” She makes her way towards him, surveying the car. “Geez, a wash could do her good too, couldn’t it? What have you been driving in?”

“Oh, you know,” Prowl says in a way that he thinks is very evasive and cool, “I bet Chromedome took it up to the old diner. It’s all dirt roads up there, you know. It gets muddy.”

“When it rains, sure,” Whirl concedes, “but it’s been bone dry these past few days. My zucchinis ain’t doing so hot.”

“Oh, are you growing zucchinis?”

They chat briefly about gardening, which is a passion Prowl has always wanted, but has never been particularly good at. Luckily, Whirl isn’t particularly good at it, either, except when she’s doing it by accident. There’s a lot of nodding and commiserating before Prowl strikes up the new topic of the unusual car.

“That’s a new ride,” he says, “I didn’t think anyone was in the market, we didn’t get a registration or anything. Out-of-towners?”

“Huh?” Whirl glances over her shoulder. “Aw, that old thing. I was gabbing with Ironhide the other day about flipping; you know how he flips houses now, with all these rich doctor-types rolling in? I got to figuring maybe I could buy some old piece of shit and flip it too, put something a little better on the market. That kind of thing.” She rolls her shoulders back and grunts with the pull of her muscle. “I swear, if I see one more truck that rolled off the line in ’84 but no one wants to buy a new one ‘cause _‘it works just fine!’, _I might start causing trouble, Prowl.”

It’s true—no one in Midian Hill buys new cars. No one in Midian Hill even _really _buys _used _cars. It would be taking money out of the town and putting it somewhere else; the few residents still struggling to keep their town afloat know better than to let any petty cash get out of their circle here. It was supposed to get better, with Ratchet’s new cast of doctors from New York and Chicago and Boston coming in and buying houses, but most of them don’t shop at the general store. They’d rather drive thirty minutes out to the next town over, which has a _Whole Foods, _mercy forbid. Think they’re better than this place, think they’re better than these people. Ratchet’s not like that, but that’s because he lived here first. He’s part of this town, and he knows it, doesn’t turn his nose up at them like that First Aid does. Hah.

And then Chromedome hauls off and says something stupid about how he _admires _them, like he doesn’t know what they think of this town. Big city people, self-satisfied academics, think they know everything, and for what? What, exactly, have they brought here? Just a lot of trouble and bad attitudes. Ratchet, poor soul, he thinks the hospital’s success means the town can start thriving again. Prowl’s pretty sure this town, the town he grew up in, the only place he knows, is going to slip down a little drain in the universe and be gone forever soon. The hospital might survive, sure, but it’s the only thing that will.

“That’s pretty smart,” he says airily, “of course, it’d just be a matter of getting someone to buy it once it’s flipped. What year is it?”

“I think it’s ’06, I’d have to check the title,” she says. “Anyway, I might have to trash it if I can’t get it to go, so don’t go hoping it’ll be on the market for you.” She elbows him, hard, and he laughs.

There’s something he’s trying to put together in his head about the car… he’s worn out today, didn’t sleep well last night or the night before. The chief says not to take work home, but the chief is a self-satisfied big city layabout who thinks of Midian Hill as some kind of paid retirement. It really should be _Prowl’s _position—he’s been in the department for almost twelve years now, he puts in the work. He’s the one taking files home, pouring over them and trying to connect tenuous dots. There’s something about the car… 

“Oh, God, I almost forgot,” he starts, slapping his forehead. “Whirl, we’re on the lookout for some suspicious characters. Two men, not from around here. They showed up at the station a few nights ago and tried to muscle their way into some confidential information. We’re asking everyone,” he adds quickly, realizing that asking the only reformed criminal in town about other criminals might sound accusatory, “we know they went to the hospital, but the trail goes cold after that.”

Whirl raises an eyebrow over the ridge of her eyepatch. “Suspicious characters, huh,” she says, “that must be pretty exciting for you, big man. I wish I could help, but I hain’t seen nobody, honest.”

“It’s just so odd,” he mutters out loud, “they showed up, looking for some John Doe at the hospital… he disappears, and suddenly they’re gone. Damn, I wish we’d thought to get their license plate. They seemed like harmless kids.”

“They got the guy?” Whirl asks. She seems… surprised. “But they—why would you think they were still in town? If they got what they came for, wouldn’t they’ve left? Nobody’s eager to have heat on their backs.”

“I have no idea,” Prowl says. “We don’t think so. The doctors say the John Doe was gone before our guys even got there. If they were looking for him, they must’ve stuck around.” He rubs his lips. “It just makes no damn sense,” he says. “No damn sense at all.”

“Sounds pretty contentious,” Whirl says, but she’s moving away from him now, popping the hood of his car and staring into its guts. “Hey, maybe someone else wanted this guy too. Got there first. Maybe he’s got a diamond in his stomach or something, like in Snatch! You ever see that flick?” She raps on the engine with a metal claw. It makes a _tink-tunk _noise. “They’re all looking for the same diamond, and in the end it turns out the dog ate it. Dude who gets the dog gets the diamond.”

“Never saw it. Isn’t it a foreign film?”

“It’s _British,_ I _guess _you could make that argument.”

“Anyway, it’s impossible,” Prowl says, shaking his head. “None of the doctors saw anyone else go in or out, and there’s security systems to make sure people don’t just wander in undetected. No, I can’t figure how anyone else would have gotten in and found him; not a couple of out-of-town types, not in a maze like that place.”

“Maybe it was the attending,” Whirl hazards. “I was watching this medical drama the other day, I forget what it’s called, but anyway, the patient died and it turned out one of the doctors did it on purpose ‘cause they had beef or something. Crazy.”

“Ratchet?” Prowl says, and scoffs. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

Optimus has had better days. Most of his days have been better days, actually. Off the top of his head, he can only actually think of one that was worse.

_I’m committing a crime,_ he thinks, watching the doorway of Ratchet’s house through the windshield of his truck. _It was never supposed to come to this. Not here, not me._

Optimus knows that most cops are—well, that they’ve almost all got some dirt on them, one way or another, even if they aren’t _dirty cops _themselves. For God’s sake, he was a black kid growing up in Detroit, he _knows _what cops in big cities are like. The first few years in New York had almost broken him. Standing by. Being ordered to stand by. Other cops trying to “take him under their wing”, “show him the ropes”.

But it had been this or the military, and Optimus had chosen one and his brother had chosen the other. Their parents expected things. He’d been a studious child well enough, and he’d heard about the VA’s treatment of soldiers coming home from Vietnam. He wouldn’t be a part of _that, _he had decided. He’d go to the academy, he’d be principled, he’d—he’d pull the district he was a part of up by the bootstraps, he’d change things, he’d _fix _things. Lead by example. Make his task force better by being a better cop than the ones on the street.

And after about two years, Ariel had told him that _pulling yourself up by your bootstraps _meant _doing the impossible. _He wasn’t some virtuous Carnegie cleaning New York up; he was Sisyphus, bound to Hell, scrambling after his boulder every time someone told him to _enforce_ the law, not to _follow_ it.

The door opens, and Ratchet steps out, followed immediately by the mountain. He looks exhausted and distressed, wringing his hands and glancing up at wossname. Metatron or something. Optimus feels a pang of something confusing; his stomach aches with fatigue and hunger; his head aches with anger and sorrow and pity.

Ratchet is wearing civilian clothes. With some embarrassment, Optimus realizes he’d always just assumed Ratchet didn’t have any. When they talk, they talk about work; he doesn’t think about what Ratchet does in his time off. He barely seems to have any, anyway. It hadn’t seemed important.

Now he’ll probably never know. Everything has changed. They’ll both have to change, too.

Ratchet is talking, saying something to Meta-whoever. The giant keeps reaching down to touch his face, and Ratchet keeps reaching up to brush it away without a break in stride, like he doesn’t even know he’s doing it. Optimus grits his teeth. “Bastard,” he mutters, and then, because it felt good, says it again. He’s not… he isn’t, he can’t be angry at Ratchet, because the guilt of being angry at him is too savage to bear. But there’s something frothing inside him, forming into vicious anathema against that thing.

He must have been forced into it, Optimus thinks, watching Ratchet offer an arm to help the bastard around to the passenger side of the car. Tricked into it. Metatron must be some kind of actor, a master of the wounded gazelle gambit, and he must have known who to appeal to. First Aid was working on his case too, after all, and _he _hadn’t been appealed to. Must understand psychology.

Well, Optimus understands psychology, too. He can work a case. He’s going to find a crack in that facade and drive a wedge into it.

This is part of why he can’t be angry at Ratchet—Ratchet agreed with him about this. He’d said, _I need to interrogate him one-on-one, I need to talk to him myself, _and Ratchet had nodded. 

_I’m sure you’ll find out more than I could, _he’d said, _you’re good at figuring things out._

The door opens, and Ratchet helps Meta-Mega—the giant into the passenger seat. The giant turns his face away from Optimus and says something that he can’t hear, and Ratchet stares up at him, eyes wide, and shakes his head. “Don’t be,” he says, “just be careful.”

He shuts the door for the giant and walks around to the driver’s side, where Optimus rolls the window down for him. He’s expecting to get a _be careful,_ too, but instead, Ratchet says “remember, take him straight out of town. If anyone sees you with him, you could be indicted. I don’t want—you shouldn’t be held responsible for this. I—thank you for doing this.”

Optimus looks him in the eye and feels blue lighting go down his back, the way it does sometimes when Ratchet smiles at him. He leans on the windowsill, too close and too far. “No matter what happens out there,” he says, “I’m not going to let anything happen to you. I’m going to protect you.”

Ratchet swallows visibly. For a moment, Optimus almost expects him to lean forward and kiss him, or at the very least to say a tearful _be careful, _but instead, he touches his arm and says “please listen to him and—be impartial.”

Optimus swallows. “Right,” he says, and then pulls away and puts the truck in reverse.

He’d wanted to be a good cop; just one good cop in a sea of shit. Now he’s wondering if he can actually live on retirement, when he’s done getting away with being a criminal. He can’t go back to the department, even if they do get away with this. Prowl will make a relatively benign chief, at the very least. He’ll lose that jealous bitterness once he realizes how ugly and pointless promotion really is.

“So what’s your real name?” Optimus asks, accelerating as he gets onto the highway ramp.

“Clarify your terms,” Metatron says, frowning. He’s staring straight ahead, face stuck in its crooked profile. Bent nose, square jaw. “The people I respect call me Megatron. But what is ‘real’? How do you define a man by his name? Language only exists to communicate ideas.”

Optimus stares hard at the road. It’s dark, still, and out here the dark is blinding, a mass of foreboding shapes moving against each other. Not like New York. There wasn’t any darkness in New York, and there were never any stars, either. “I mean your real, legal name,” he says, “the name on your birth certificate, the one your parents gave you. You are not jerking on Ratchet’s chain right now, Megatron, I’m not going to go head over heels for some linguistic anthropological bullshit because you blinked your eyes at me.”

“Is that what you think of him?” Megatron asks. “Do you truly think he is so simple?”

“I think you’re dodging the question,” Optimus snaps. “I want to know your name, and I want to know it now. Who are your parents? Where were you born?”

Megatron looks at him briefly—he sees the movement out of the corner of his eye. Confusion. “I know nothing about my birth,” he says, “I don’t know who my parents are. I never met them.”

“How convenient.”

“What is a—you said it before. A certificate. What is that?”

“Very clever,” Optimus says bitterly. This isn’t how he _wants _to interrogate Megatron—he can’t see his face well enough, not in the dark and not while he’s driving. But it’s the safest technique he has right now. Megatron can’t attack him like this, not without crashing the car and killing them both. Ratchet had suggested it, actually. A good technique in the absence of the regular safeguards. “Why not ask me what parents are? That’d be more pathetic. A real tearjerker.”

“I know what _parents _are,” Megatron snaps, “I’m not _stupid.”_

“I don’t think you are,” Optimus says. “I think you’re very smart, Megatron, maybe even as smart as _you _think you are. It’s a good con to run, very sympathetic, but you’ve only gotten as far as you have because you’re lucky and because Ratchet is kind. I think significantly less of you.”

“Yes, I know,” he says. “You’ve been extremely transparent in your contempt of me. You can’t stand the idea that I might be telling the truth, can you?” He surges up suddenly in his seat, and Optimus glances at him in a panic, watching for a fist— “you need me to be a monster because you need an excuse to hate me. Your flimsy moral code won’t—“

Optimus jerks the wheel hard, and the car swerves so suddenly he’s scared they’re going to spin out. Megatron yelps, big hands grabbing for the dashboard, his fury momentary wiped out by cringing fear. “Do _not _forget who is in control, here,” Optimus snaps, trying to sound less frightened than he is, “you touch me, we spin out and go over the edge. This is the largest mountain range in the continental U.S. Do you understand? One more move like that, and you could get us both killed. Do you understand? Do you understand?”

Megatron bows his head and covers his face with a hand. He’s gone quiet all over, tail between his legs like a kicked dog. Optimus grits his teeth—he will not feel guilty about putting both of them in danger, he can’t, he doesn’t have it in him—and lets out a shaky breath. He shifts back into the right lane.

Yes, he’s trapped in this cage with a feral animal. They’re trapped in here with each other.

“It’s a legal document,” he says, after they’ve been driving in silence for two minutes. Megatron lifts his head out of his hands, eyeing him cautiously.

“What?”

“A birth certificate,” Optimus clarifies. “It’s a document a hospital signs to certify that a child was born on a certain day at a certain time, with signatures from witnesses.”

“Oh,” Megatron says. He stares out the passenger-side window, watching distant lights whizz by. There’s not much to see out here. A few houses up in the hills, maybe, and a whole lot of nothing. “I don’t think I have one of those. I don’t think I ever lived with my parents. I think…” he pauses and sighs, and there’s the gentle _tump _of him resting his head against the window. “I remember the first place I worked,” he says after a moment. “I remember that it wasn’t my home, because I had moved there from somewhere else… but I don’t remember the place I moved from.”

Optimus absorbs this.

The thing is—the thing is, he doesn’t _want _Ratchet to be right. He wants Ratchet to be starry-eyed and kind and basically good, but functionally naïve when push comes to shove. There’s an emotional component of that, sure, something soppy pulling on his heart, but the bigger issue is that if Megatron’s telling the truth, they’re all in deep shit. The best-case scenario is a forced labor charge, which is no small feat and almost impossible to prove in a court of law. At worst… 

“When you say the first place you worked,” Optimus says, “I want to know more about that. Do you remember how old you were?”

Megatron makes a clicking noise with his mouth. Almost a crunching noise as he pops his jaw in and out of place. It’s a familiar noise to Optimus; something his nephew does when he’s focusing hard on his homework (or bluffing in a card game), and when he identifies it, it almost startles him. “I was… a child,” Megatron says eventually, sounding uncertain. “I must have been… very young. I remember that… the counters in the kitchen were taller than me. I had to stand on a chair to clean them.”

“What else do you remember about this job?” Optimus asks. “You say you cleaned counters. Did you do other things?”

“All cleaning,” Megatron says. “Scrubbing floors or tiles. Since I was small, I could get into tight spaces and clean them out. And it was very hot,” he adds suddenly, like a bolt of inspiration, “I remember that it was very hot there. And there was mold in the baseboards.”

Seemingly random details all, but Optimus files them away mentally. He’s got no reason to believe Megatron is remembering all this instead of conjuring it up on the fly. So he’ll let Megatron forget what he’s said, then check him on details later. If he can come up with the right ones, he just might be telling the truth.

“I remember the mold because it got me in trouble,” Megatron continues on, turning his head back to stare out the windshield. “I pried one of the baseboards off because I had to keep cleaning growth away and found mold there; so I went to the woman who owned the house and told her what I’d found. She called someone on the phone to come and get rid of the mold, and then she beat me for removing the baseboard.”

It’s so matter-of-fact that Optimus doesn’t know how to respond. He’s dealt with domestics before, ugly fights in apartments in the beating heart of Brooklyn, tearing hysterical children away from maniac parents only for them to be sent right back—sound and fury, signifying nothing—and he’s familiar with taking those statements. Incomprehensible finger-pointing and all the rest of it. Maybe he’s just not used to the sound of old hurt, trauma so early and ancient that it forms a cornerstone of personality. The sort of thing you can say succinctly without remembering, or which perhaps all other memory is shaped around the image of.

That, or maybe Megatron isn’t as good of a liar as Optimus pegged him for.

“Do you remember anything about the woman who owned the house?” He asks, because for his own safety he needs to hold the details of the beating at an arm’s length. And because he doubts it’s what his pal here is expecting. Keep him on his toes.

“She was white,” Megatron says almost immediately, “long talons. ‘Acrylics’.” This word garners air-quotes. “She was very proud of her ‘acrylics’. And she had orange hair. She was the only person I ever knew who had orange hair. And she wore…” he pauses, frowning. “The—the shoes,” he says, after a moment, “the ones with… with the spike on them. The tall spike.”

“Heels,” Optimus supplies. Megatron gives him a baleful look.

_“All _shoes have a _heel _on them,” he says unsympathetically. “Otherwise, they wouldn’t be shoes.”

Optimus opens his mouth to argue, decides it’s stupid, and closes it again, shaking his head. “Nevermind,” he says. “Did she pay you for your work?”

Megatron squints at him. “Pay,” he repeats. “I… pay?”

“It’s a yes or no answer,” Optimus says. “Wait—let me guess. You don’t know what ‘pay’ means.”

Megatron frowns. “I know what it means,” he snaps, and then, more quietly, “theoretically. Like the Pharisees and Judas Isc—Iscariot.”

“You’re familiar with the Bible,” Optimus says, quietly interested despite himself. “Who told you about the Pharisees? Are you a church man?”

“I don’t know what a church man is,” Megatron says, sounding uncomfortable. “One of the men from the Upper House brought us Religion. He wasn’t supposed to. I know, because we never saw him again after that. He was unkind, but he respected our way of trade; others from the Upper House do not. I could respect that.” He crosses his arms over himself, and Optimus notices for the first time that he hasn’t put his seatbelt on. Fuck. Typical. “That’s what it is to pay. It’s a trade. Transaction. With money instead of objects. Coins. My first owner, she would give me coins; but she would take them back after. Can you call that ‘pay’? Do you see my dilemma in language? I don’t obfuscate to confuse you or to buy time. Your language is unforgiving to those who do not live in it. How high and mighty you are, surely, to be testing me in the way you are. You don’t desire this knowledge for any benefit but to disprove my suffering. What do you say to that?”

“Buckle your seatbelt,” replies Optimus, “this is a click-it or ticket state.”

Megatron looks up at the seatbelt, apparently startled. Silently (but with proud malice), he pulls his seatbelt across his torso and clicks it in.

“As for what I think of you,” Optimus says, “that’s none of your business. I’ll ask the questions, and you’ll answer them.”

“You don’t want to think well of me,” Megatron says.

“I’m giving you a fair chance,” Optimus says. “You can’t say I’m not giving you a fair chance.”

“You’re jealous,” Megatron says, “because Ratchet chose to defend me from you. You’re scared that his affections lie with me.”

Optimus does not look at him.

“How humiliating!” Megatron muses. “How much time have you spent courting him? Only to have him bite your hand like that? Think carefully before answering! You wouldn’t want to give me the wrong impression about you.”

“I’m not _courting _him,” Optimus says defensively, “he’s my _friend. _That’s why I listened to him; that’s why I’m giving you this chance at all.”

“Which pain was worse?” Megatron asks, grinning broadly. “Thinking he’d been taken in? Or finding out that he hadn’t gone to _you _when he was in trouble? You with your heroism, you with your great big protective feeling for him; didn’t you think he needed you? Didn’t it hurt you that he doesn’t?”

“Right, I don’t have to take this,” Optimus snaps, and pulls the car to the right.

“Think you can scare me again, rattling the cage?” Megatron says. His hands clutch at the dashboard. “That’ll only work once.”

“You know, not _everything _is about you,” Optimus says. “I’m getting on the fucking exit ramp. I need to do some shopping.”


End file.
